Have you heard the news?

News in one form or another—print or broadcast—grabs for our attention. As we try to keep up on politics, sports, business, entertainment, and international events, from time to time we ask each other, Have you heard (or seen) the news?

Knowing more of what's going on and knowing it faster can help us. Yet sometimes we feel barraged with an overabundance of information and an under abundance of real insight. What is this news we tend to follow so closely? Is it genuine information needed to make good decisions? Or is it sometimes as sensationalized and slanted as the old yellow journalism of a century ago? Even when it appears to be more or less objective, is it capturing our attention for the right reasons?

Professional definitions of what constitutes news change and evolve over the years. Recently some disturbing emphases on dramatization and fictionalization of news have entered the scene. But we can expect that higher standards of news journalism will continue to develop as the ethical and moral impetus in our society continues to increase.

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