News:

is information: packaged for public consumption

is codified through a process of selection, reporting, editing, 'visualising' & eventual publication

has an essential democratic function

"...is one of the starting points of the public information equation, providing an essential forum for an informed citizenry in a democratic society with the routine electoral process and long-term democratic evolution of the contemporary world depending in part, on healthy, properly functioning news media"
(MacGregor:)

is set within political democracy, functioning most effectively when most open to public criticism
(Schudson:)

is public knowledge: a distinct form of culture
(Schudson:)

has a specific political function: to serve the ruling political elite. A truly free, open and democratic press is impossible within the political and economic constraints of the 'propaganda model'
(Herman & Chomsky:)

must be new, but not stay new. It has inbuilt 'periodicity' - a terminator gene & planned obsolescence; a shelf-life - without which it is impossible to create more news and for news to function as a product and as part of the 'news-industry'
(Somerville:)

has been processed: it becomes '...a composite, shared, ordered and edited product.
(Schudson:)

is manufactured and composed: as much a commodity or product as anything for sale on supermarket shelves
(Hartley: Fowler: )

is an objective report of events as they happen & are witnessed / recorded by 'news-reporters'

is dependent on 'news-values': those factors that somehow judge 'news-worthiness'

is the product of a specific series of subjective filters which themselves serve a distinct political economy: the ruling capitalist class and their associated special interests
(Herman & Chomsky: )

is not biased against one social class
(Harrison: )

is self-defining: 'news' (the thing, the product or form) is news (what's new, the event or content) & this content depends almost entirely on meeting pre-defined values of 'news-worthiness'

"...is supposed to be about new and unexpected things...' but seems preoccupied with six types of thing: the economy, foreign affairs, domestic events, celebrity and sport
(After Hartley: )