News updates are a critical source of information that chronicles ongoing events, both national and international. This allows people to be aware of the world around them and make informed choices in their day-to-day lives. It also gives a historical record of the evolution of human society.
While social media is an important source of information, it can be difficult to understand the context and implications of a particular event, especially in a short space of time. News articles provide in-depth analysis and help readers comprehend current events by putting them in a historical context, allowing them to better adapt to change.
Moreover, the information extracted from news is often more accurate than that found on social networks. This is due to the fact that journalistic content is structured and tries to answer the 5 W questions: who, what, when, where, and why. This structure favors the extraction of information, with even specialized prompts that are used for this purpose [27].
Another advantage of using news is its availability. Although copyrighted, many publications are available to the general public and can be used in different applications. However, it is worth noting that there are also publication delays and editorial bias in some cases, which may affect the representation of certain events (e.g., the coverage of influenza pandemics).
In addition, the quality of information in news may vary from one source to another, affecting the ability to detect occurrences at the right moment. Nonetheless, some works have successfully used news for event detection, such as the TimeLine 17 dataset and the SportsSum data set.