News is a form of knowledge that makes people aware of things that are happening around them. The term has been used since ancient times, and government proclamations have been considered news for centuries.
Today, news is published in a variety of formats. Some examples include television, radio, the internet, and print media.
News is also known as “hard news” to distinguish it from “soft news”. Hard news is news of an immediate and important event. Typically, it is short (less than 1,000 words) and matter-of-fact.
Soft news can include longer stories, and is about events that are ongoing. It can be about a person, showbusiness, or entertainment. Often, it includes an element of surprise.
Depending on the media, there are two types of hard and soft news. Most newspapers, magazines, and other print media focus on hard news.
In addition, news can be classified based on its frequency. This can be influenced by time of day. Stories that are on-going tend to be more popular.
Some news values are defined by scholarly explanations. For example, Galtung and Ruge (1965) developed criteria for the study of news. They looked at the audience and the characteristics of newspapers.
Other news value categories are influenced by social developments. Examples of these values include “fairness,” which is the balanced nature of the story; “surprise,” which is a surprise that readers are not prepared for; and “magnitude,” which can be described as the number of incidents or the size of the personality involved.