News has two priorities: it must be current, and it must mean something to people. A story about the environment and a story about the Oscars can both be newsworthy, for different reasons.

On the surface at least, the objective of news is to inform the audience. It's the job of all the news media to tell people what's going on in their community - locally, nationally or globally. In this sense, the news media provide a valuable public service.

But the media are also businesses - and like all businesses they have to make money to keep going. Audiences today can get news and information from many different sources. This increased competition is putting pressure on media outlets to attract advertising dollars to keep them running. This is especially true for privately owned media, but it's also a concern for publicly owned media (such as CBC) that need to attract audiences and ad revenues to survive.

Media outlets have to cater to their audiences, and they compete with one another to provide what they think their "customers" want. This can certainly mean honest and factual news reporting. But it can also mean shorter, more exciting stories; flashy, sexy, or shocking images; crime, death, disaster, tragedy; confrontation, violence, controversy; or anything else that might attract viewers or readers. When taken to extremes (as in the "tabloid" newspapers or television shows), "news" can become just another type of sensational entertainment.

For more information on the differences between mainstream, community, and youth media, see Accessing the Media.