World news is a term used in the media for any piece of information about an event or phenomenon that takes place outside of the country where the reporter works. This is a subfield of journalism that is generally considered to be foreign (although war news is often considered to be national for reporters in belligerent countries).

Traditionally, it was difficult for individual newspapers to cover events in other countries, except for those near enough to have been easily reached by land transport or ship. This led to the establishment of news agencies, such as AP (US), Reuters (UK) and Wolff (currently DPA and DPA Germany). These prepared hard news stories which they sold in bulk to other newspapers and broadcasters, as well as to individuals and governments.

Reporters working for news agencies abroad without a permanent contract are often referred to as stringers. They produce articles on several subjects for a number of different news outlets at the same time.