#1 - Defining News

 James Hesterly

Professor Reppert 

MM 2003

Defining News

When defining news, I would say the best way is to look at the dictionary definition. One of Merriam-Webster’s definitions for news is “a report of recent events.” News is a report, it is a way to keep people informed of current events and is a way to help people stay educated on the world around them. I believe news is always and has always been important as I believe it is important to know what is going on around you so you can form your opinions and make the best decisions in certain situations.

News is something we see everyday in our lives,  there are some things that are news

that you may have never even thought of. To get a full understanding of the definition or what news means I think it is important to understand the origin of it. News can be dated back hundreds of years, before any physical news there was word of mouth or if you want to go back even further you could even say cave drawings can be perceived as a way people possibly got their news. I would say that news gathering and how people received their updates became notable around 1440 when Johannes Gutenberg invented his printing press. At first only reserved for books and important documents, after printing became cheaper, politics and current issues would start to be printed and put on large posters creating the first broadsheet. This breakthrough would also later lead to newspapers, a news source still used today, although it has gone down in popularity.

Another breakthrough in news sourcing would come in the 1920s with radio, some preferred radio over newspaper because it was instant and did not have a wait for publication. It allowed the broadcasters to get a more personal relationship with their audience and even served as a form of entertainment as people would gather around to listen to the radio. Later in the 1940s televised news would come into play. Broadcast news on TV gave people an opportunity to sit and watch a program dedicated to current events and the news, it allowed news and media to become even more widespread than before and with more and more people gaining access to a television, it became the new most popular way to receive news. 

In the late 20th Century but even more now in the 21st Century, we receive our news digitally, through our phones or computers. This has made news even more accessible than ever before with as many sources as you could want, but this does not come without its issues. Due to the state of social media and how it handles news, there is a heap of misinformation online, things that may not be true or articles that could be misleading just to paint a certain picture. You even see it on popular news stations on TV, just to illustrate the point they want to make. I believe in terms of the big picture it is hard in the modern day to get the truth in the news. To me news should be the exact events of what happened and that is what should be reported, it is the viewers or listeners job to form their own opinions on subjects and I believe it shouldn’t be sugarcoated to help any one group. I feel it is important for people to be able to make their own opinions based on the information they are giving and with some of these skewed narratives, it can be hard to do nowadays.

 

News is everywhere in the modern day, it is in places you wouldn’t even think to look. It can be heard on the radio, it can be seen on a TV, and you can even view right in your hand on your phone. News is a valuable resource all throughout history and today and it serves many purposes in the media. I believe that news should be presented in an honest and transparent way so that opinions can be formed in a fair manner and with no bias besides what the person already has. With all the misinformation and bias in the news today, I feel it is hard to find good and honest news, but that doesn’t take away from the significance news media has on our culture and on history.