What Makes News?

News is everywhere in our society. Everyone seems to know everything and there is usually some kind of news story about something that happened somewhere or someone or something that happened at some point in the past. The news brings a lot of excitement, whether you are watching a game, reading a book or watching the news. In school, the students all seemed glued to the television news all day long, but when it came to covering sports, the evening news was reserved for the big games. Other examples of news included the following:

A. Human Activity: When a news story tells of some new human activity, such as a virus outbreak, it makes news. Examples of news like this would be the recent flu epidemic in Chicago. When the virus outbreak first hit the city, it caused panic and people were so fearful that they avoided public places and stores. As people calmed down, it became clear that the outbreak was caused by someone who had been moving from state to state. This report on human activity spread quickly throughout the country.

B. Current Events: Any type of news that makes the current events more interesting is often newsworthy. This includes breaking news like the Oklahoma City tornado or Hurricane Sandy. Both of these news events become newsworthy when a human interest angle comes into play. When people want to know how a tragedy occurred or why a person would do something, they will turn to the newspaper to find out.