The word "news" originates from the first letters of the 4 main directions on a compass (North, East, West, South).

The story behind the answer

False. “News” doesn’t come from the compass points. It derives from “new” plus a noun-forming -s, influenced by French “nouvelles” (plural of “nouvelle,” meaning “new thing”). In Middle English it appeared as “newes,” meaning “new things,” and by the 14th–15th centuries it referred to reports of recent events. The compass-acronym idea is a modern backronym—an invented explanation retrofitted to a familiar word.

Helpful tip: remember “news” as “what’s new,” not N-E-W-S. That’s why we say “the news is” (treated as a mass noun) and not “a news.” Early printed “newsbooks” and later newspapers simply collected “new” reports, sometimes from many places—perhaps fueling the myth that it came from all directions.