Whether you’re crafting news for your company’s blog or writing about the latest industry trends for your magazine, it’s essential to find that sweet spot between factual and interesting. If the content you produce feels too dry and academic, it will have little impact.
News is information about significant events. Events must be new, unusual and interesting to be newsworthy. The degree to which they meet these criteria varies from society to society.
For example, an insect may have been discovered living on a plant which it did not previously inhabit, but this does not make for very much news. It might be reported in a scientific journal or specialist newspaper, but for a general news broadcast or paper it would only merit a brief mention at most.
However, the same bug could be a major threat to people’s crops, in which case it is newsworthy and of considerable importance. Similarly, some opinions expressed by people who are well known can be newsworthy, even if they differ from the majority view. A comment by an archbishop, for example, on whether the Roman Catholic Church should ordain women priests might be newsworthy, although perhaps not as much as a statement by a peasant farmer who opposes it. Magnitude also matters; a big story is more likely to attract attention than one that involves only a few people. News can be a good or bad influence on our lives, so it’s important to keep up to date with what is happening around us.