World news is the name for major international news stories covered by a variety of sources. It is distinct from domestic news (or “local” or “home”) coverage, which is primarily based on local events and people, with occasional reports of national interest, such as presidential politics. Generally, journalists who cover world news work for full-time news sources or are part of a team that is deployed on assignment. The field of world news journalism encompasses both foreign and domestic reporting, but there is more emphasis on foreign news, particularly for reporters who are assigned to cover war and other major events abroad.
Aside from the main newscasts, the program is known for its e-mail segment, which was a pioneer of email communication between anchors and viewers. Each time an e-mail came in, the anchors would read it aloud and respond, sometimes humorously. Occasionally, the anchors would also check in with affiliate ABC News producers to see what they were working on in their markets (e.g. a blizzard in New York City would result in a rebroadcast of that night’s ABC World News Tonight).
World News Now was often a training ground for younger news presenters who went on to higher-profile jobs with ABC and its local affiliates. The show’s regular features included Morning Papers (a compilation of offbeat stories and funny pictures from newspapers around the world, replaced in 2012 by The Mix), Insomniac Theater (a recap of the top movies in a given week), and World News Knows (a quick trivia fact flashed on-screen after commercial breaks). Until September 2011, the Citadel Communications-owned ABC stations KTWO-TV in Casper, Wyoming and WVII-TV in Bangor, Maine preempted World News Now to air a simulcast of the cable home shopping channel Jewelry Television.