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News and Media

News and media are related. News refers to information or current events while media refers to the means by which information is disseminated.

News comes from the terms “new.” News, therefore, refers to new, relevant, significant and timely information. To be worthy of reporting, the news related should be something previously unknown to its recipient. The information contained should be a revelation to the receiver of the news. Thus, you would hear the expression, “This was news to him.”

News should also be relevant to be newsworthy. Relevant news is something that is pertinent to the recipient. The information contained should be something appropriate to its audience, something the hearer of the news could relate to. If this is not the case, then the information will not be news to the recipient and will be largely ignored.

News should also be significant. This is not the same as being relevant. To be significant, news should relate information that is important and noteworthy to the news recipient. Thus, a hike in oil prices would be most assuredly newsworthy but Madonna's torn fingernail would most certainly not be newsworthy. Though, of course, some people may disagree with this assertion.

Lastly, news to be newsworthy should be timely. It should be related at the time where it will be most significant and relevant to its target audience. For example, news about a coming typhoon is indeed worthy of reporting. However, if the report about the typhoon's speed, direction and other particulars is related after the typhoon had already passed, it is no longer newsworthy. It has become information that came too late to be useful.

News is the main product of the journalism field. The people who are tasked to gathering and reporting news are called newscasters, news reporters, news writers, news anchors among others. Generally, these people are called journalists.

News though has several degrees to it. At one end of the spectrum is hard news and on the other end is soft news. Hard news is the term that refers to the professional end of newscasting. It is where objectivity and all other newsworthiness characteristics come into great play. This classification would include weather, world news and politics among others. Soft news, on the other hand, has more of an entertainment value. It is not based so much on the need-to-know category but rather on the interesting-to-know category. Thus under this classification would fall showbiz news and other trivial news.

News and other types of information are circulated through the media so news and media go hand in hand. But media is a generic term that encompasses all modes of mass communication as well as the means by which information is gathered and the institutions that gather and report this information. Therefore, media is not only used to disseminate news but to relate other types of information as well.

The term mass media includes the field of print media (newspapers, magazines, etc.), published media (journals, books, etc.), radio, television, and internet.