News is current information about events in the world that people can read, listen to or watch. People are interested in stories about famous people and places, but also in things like crime, weather and money. News often helps us to understand the world and its problems and can make us realise that we have power to change it.
It is a good idea to read lots of different sources of News. Try a range of different newspapers, radio stations and online sources. It is useful to look at how a story is presented differently in each case. For example, the BBC News website is very popular and presents articles at 3 levels of English. Level 1 is very easy to read, level 2 is more advanced and level 3 has the original article with the difficult words removed. It is also useful to read opinionated news sources – blogs and opinion pages in magazines are good examples.
In journalism jargon, the beginning of a story is called a lede – it must be exciting and catch the attention of the reader. It is also important to answer any questions the reader might have about the topic right away.