News articles have several unique features:
- News articles are written for a popular audience, meaning
anyone with a standard level of education should be able to read them.
- They are comparatively brief, so the writer can't give the
audience too much background.
- They are meant to be current and up-to-date, so if you want a
present perspective on your topic, a recent news article can be
- However, they can also provide historical perspective.
Reading a news article from 1992 will help give you a window into what
was happening at that time (but might not give you accurate information
about what people think about the topic today).
- There are different types of news articles. In the image above,
there is a picture of a typical news article written by a
reporter that should provide a somewhat unbiased view. There is a
picture of a column, which mostly represents the columnist's view
on an issue, and there is an editorial, which represents either
an editor or a regular citizen's own personal opinion. Each of these
types of articles should be treated differently when you use them as a
- Finally, news articles rarely provide citations for where the
information came from.