News is current information about events that are significant or of interest to a wide audience. It may be distributed in any medium—print, radio, television, web, or other electronic means. News is a major part of the public discourse and the media, and is often considered to be a cornerstone of democracy.
When writing a news article it is important to know your audience. This will help dictate what facts you include and how you organize the information. It is also important to keep in mind the goal of a news article—to give a timely account of an interesting and/or significant development or event.
There are many different criteria that can be used to judge what makes a story newsworthy. The most common are brevity, timeliness, prominence, impact, and locality. The criterion of brevity is particularly important for online journalism where space is limited. News stories should be kept as short as possible while still providing sufficient information to convey the main point of the story.
The second criterion, timeliness, is important for both online and print journalism. Online news is often updated frequently and the ability to publish quickly and at the same time is important. The ability to provide accurate information instantly is critical for the success of any news website.
Finally, prominence is important for news because it allows a story to be seen by the most people. This is why stories are usually positioned above the fold in newspapers—the part that is visible before you have to start scrolling down the page. In the age of social media, however, it has become possible for audiences to promote and disseminate their own preferred versions of news stories. This can challenge the traditional models for news selection and create new complexities for the evaluation of what is newsworthy.