For many years, the ARPA-Internet community has supported the distribution of bulletins, information, and data in a timely fashion to thousands of participants. We collectively refer to such items of information as "news". Such news provides for the rapid dissemination of items of interest such as software bug fixes, new product reviews, technical tips, and programming pointers, as well as rapid-fire discussions of matters of concern to the working computer professional. News is very popular among its readers.
There are popularly two methods of distributing such news: the Internet method of direct mailing, and the USENET news system.