When is news not news?

Michael Thompson

Or even new, for that matter?

I remember when I first started this job — I have been here a long time, but not long enough to forget —learning what was news.

There are two basic definitions, depending on your degree of pedantry.

1. News is any information that is new. And new can mean either genuinely new or merely previously unknown by your readers.
2. News is what somebody, somewhere, doesn’t want you to know. All the rest is advertising.

This came to mind while watching the 10 O’clock News on BBC1 last night (7 October 2009). We were told that scientists had discovered a “new ring around Saturn”.

The discovery of the ring might indeed be news, but the ring most definitely isn’t new!