News - Ian Jack

What's new about news? The same stuff, surely, came galloping from Gaul to Rome, arrived at quaysides in sailing packets, was tapped out in Morse through submarine cables. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines news as 'information about important or interesting events, esp. when published or broadcast... newly received or noteworthy information'. A shorter definition is: man bites dog. A new definition would be: men bite dogs, dogs sell story. That is the news about news: there is much more of it, and more than ever it is a commodity to be sold, bought and marketed. News has become an entertainment and a global industry, deploying all the usual strategies of commerce to increase its rating and revenue and cut its costs. This issue of Granta examines some questions about news. Who makes it? Who owns it? Should we believe it?