News Or The News In This Context.
Dear teachers
Please take the time to review these sentences:
Person1: Why did you show our company in bad light?
Person2: I was just covering NEWS/THE NEWS like I do everyday. I do not have anything against your company.
Even if I cover news everyday, and it is more in general sense to me, should I still use the article "the"?
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Answers · 4
1
'The News' is appropriate here, whilst 'News' alone would not be.
'News' alone means information e.g. "Do you have any news?" or "That's news to me." In both instances, the word 'news' could be swapped with 'information'.
'The news' refers to reports, so 'to cover the news' means to gather or distributing information for a report e.g. "Did you watch the news?" or "Have you heard the news?". Here, 'the news' could be replaced with 'the report'. It can also be used if a rumour is spreading like "Have you heard the news? They've been fired."
I hope this is helps, let me know if anything needs clarifying.
Edit: And to clarify, this is true even in a general sense; the use of 'the' is always required to differentiate the two cases.
1
Person 2 would say: "I was just covering the news"
The difference is that THE NEWS deals with actual news sources (radio, TV, newspapers)
The news: News sources (TV, radio, newspaper)
News: Plural or personal inquiries
The news: I feel depressed whenever I watch the news
The news: The accident was reported on the news
News: There are hundreds of news channels nowadays
News: Any news from him yet?
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