News is information about current events, affairs and happenings. It can be about anything from political events and wars to celebrity gossip and new store openings. News is a great way to keep people informed and interested in the world around them.

In a democracy, there can be no healthy civil society without a well-informed citizenry. Yet all too often, rumours, propaganda, misinformation and outright disinformation undermine the credibility of legitimate, fact-based news media. This is a threat to the very foundation of democracy, and it is why the free press is sometimes called the oxygen of a democratic society.

For a news article to be credible and engaging it must be objective, which means not showing bias for or against the topic. It must also contain enough details for readers to make up their own opinion. This is why it is important to interview the subjects of the article. For example if a company has just changed their CEO then the journalist may interview them and ask for a quote which they can include in the news article.

Some of the main factors that influence a news story’s ‘newsworthiness’ are its significance, proximity and controversy. Significantity refers to how many people are affected by the event, for example a national scandal that affects the whole population is more newsworthy than an issue which only impacts a small local community. Proximity refers to how close the event is geographically, for example a local disaster is more newsworthy than an incident that happens in another country. Controversy is when an event causes debate or public disagreement.