News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called "hard news" to differentiate it from soft media.
Common topics for news reports include war, government, politics, education, health, the environment, economy, business, fashion, entertainment, and sport, as well as quirky or unusual events. Government proclamations, concerning royal ceremonies, laws, taxes, public health, and criminals, have been dubbed news since ancient times. Technological and social developments, often driven by government communication and espionage networks, have increased the speed with which news can spread, as well as influenced its content.
Throughout history, people have transported new information through oral means. Having developed in China over centuries, newspapers became established in Europe during the early modern period. In the 20th century, radio and television became an important means of transmitting news. Whilst in the 21st, the internet has also begun to play a similar role.
The English word "news" developed in the 14th century as a special use of the plural form of "new". In Middle English, the equivalent word was newes, like the French nouvelles and the German Neues. Similar developments are found in the Slavic languages – namely cognates from Serbo-Croatian novost (from nov, "new"), Czech and Slovak noviny (from nový, "new"), the Polish nowiny, the Bulgarian novini and Russian novosti – and likewise in the Celtic languages: the Welsh newyddion (from newydd) and the Cornish nowodhow (from nowydh).
Jessica Garretson Finch is credited with coining the phrase "current events" while teaching at Barnard College in the 1890s.
As its name implies, "news" typically connotes the presentation of new information. The newness of news gives it an uncertain quality which distinguishes it from the more careful investigations of history or other scholarly disciplines.