World news is the category of news that concerns events outside of a country’s boundaries, such as international conflicts and political crises. This news is often reported in the form of stories or features that are gathered by the major news agencies and distributed to other newspapers, broadcasters, news websites and intelligence agencies around the world. These organizations, which were founded as wire services that used telegraph technology in their early days, prepare hard news and feature articles for multiple markets with the goal of making it easy for a variety of news outlets to quickly report on world events.
Several times during each broadcast, a “new email” sound will play and announcer Bill Rice will read aloud a viewer-submitted e-mail, which can be either serious or humorous in nature. This is a feature that originated on the show in its earliest incarnations, and it has become a hallmark of WNN.
WNN is also well known for its offbeat and lighthearted segments, such as the World News Polka (often played on an accordion by comedian Barry Mitchell), the Morning Papers, which showcased offbeat newspaper stories from around the globe, and Insomniac Theater, in which a staff member gave their ad-libbed movie review. The program concludes on Fridays with some version of the World News Polka – usually the original recording by Barry Mitchell – as the show’s production credits are scrolled across the screen.
WNN has been preempted on occasion by local television stations. KTWO-TV in Casper, Wyoming and WVII-TV in Bangor, Maine both once did this in order to air a simulcast of the cable home shopping network Jewelry Television, but both stations reinstated World News Now when those syndication agreements expired.