All content copyright Paul Smyres, Living Being Media.   All rights reserved.

The D.U.H. editorial department is engaged in a furious debate about what is news, and is asking for input from citizens.

The chief editor is adamant about it.   “News must be new information that is important to lots of people”, he said.

However, many of the editorial department staffers have serious questions and disagreement.  ”For example,” one of them said, “if it is news today, it could still be news tomorrow because someone may not have heard it yet, so it’s news to them.”

And then, there is that question of whether there might be different kinds of news.    For now, the editorial committee has agreed on the following types of news.

News ( regular, ordinary, mostly boring new stuff )

Old news ( new for some, but old for most people )   Old news is great because you can use up a lot of time telling and retelling the same story while the reporters take a break.   A lot of people don’t even realize it’s old news.

Filler news ( when you’re waiting for some real news to happen, or the TV people are bored )

Breaking news ( when the news is really brand new and nobody heard of it before )   This kind of news is not very common, but when it happens people get very excited and some of them run to the nearest TV.

eternal news ( it’s always important and sometimes old, but most people don’t care much about it so it seems new )

celebrity news ( popular people who want you to talk about them )   Celebrity news can get kind of exciting because sometimes it involves underwear and various lovers, who also have some news to share.

fake news ( could be comedy, or real news, or any combination of not totally true news )

political “news” ( combination of news, old news, and fake news )   This is one of the most common kinds of news.   Half the time you can’t tell if it’s old, fake, funny, fluff, or breaking news.    There’s so much of it because politicians are always talking and trying to get attention.

product news ( when an advertiser wants you to tell people about their great stuff, even if it’s old )  Sometimes this is fake news, or old news.

funny news ( to give a little relief between the news and breaking news so people will keep the TV on )

health news ( usually summed up by ‘eat good food, exercise, and avoid breathing in smoke’ )  They usually have a doctor tell you this, so you can be sure it’s from a top authority.

weather news ( this one’s fantastic because there’s always something going on )  you can use it as breaking news, real news, filler news, funny news, and even health news.   TV channels love weather news because it’s so easy.    They get someone to stand out in the hurricane, holding on to a sign, and say, “This is really exciting, but stay home, don’t do this”.

Fluff news ( for shows that have a few people just talking about stuff, whether it’s meaningful or not )   For example, they might be telling stories about how their kid filled up his diaper, and call it news.   Believe it or not, loads of people love hearing about this stuff.

Sports news - this one’s also really popular   It can be used as filler news, fluff, and sometimes breaking news.   There are also sub-categories of player news, team news, and scandal news.   There’s so much of this type of news they have to have extra channels just to show it all.   Some people are addicted to it, that’s how good it is for TV.

Money news ( this one gets a lot of attention because everyone worries about their money )    It can be a combination of political news, real news, breaking news, or even fake news.

Scary news ( news they put on TV to make people scared )  It could be fake news, political news, or even sometimes weather or money news.

Foreign news – this is little clips they put on to give people the idea they have a lot of reporters all around the world finding more news, when most of them just sit at desks and download videos from foreign people’s cell phones

War news ( this one always gets a lot of attention and lots of advertising )   It can be a combination of breaking news, fake news, political news, and foreign news.  War news is really common, but they only show tiny amounts because most people don’t like it.

There are probably a lot more undiscovered types of news, that’s why it’s so hard to decide what to put on the “news” programs.

The D.U.H. needs input from citizens about this important issue.    If you have any idea what News is, please let us know.