Increasingly over time, I have noticed newscasters pronouncing the word news with a soft s, instead of a z, similar to the word noose. Imagine pronouncing the word Thursday with a soft s, as in thirst. Totally wrong. It annoys me to no end. I consider such mispronunciation as a speech impediment, totally unfitting for a radio newscaster. Maybe you have not noticed it but listen carefully and you will hear quite a number of them do it.
Why is this happening? Are they making some kind of statement?
Actually, I would say in most British accents it rhymes with “excuse”, i.e. with a “yuh” sound somewhere in the middle. Though I realise this is not the point being made. I agree that it is wrong with a non-voiced “s”, but I have never heard it said that way.
Sorry I put it badly. News is not supposed to be like the ‘nooz’ in snooze, but more like the ‘roos’ in kangaroos.
My guess about the soft ‘s’ is that some announcer used it and decided it sounded cool, so others have emulated them. Hopefully it is just a silly fad that will drown in the Atlantic.
And as an aside, most people on the national radio station here in Canada seem to pronounce it “nyews” rather than “nooze,” although I know that’s not the main point here.
I think Bob has it right. My observations relate mainly to CBC newscasters. In Britain they have BBC English and pronunciation, where the BBC sets the standard with prescribed spelling, promunciation, grammar, etc. in Canada CBC is the equivalent, but they don’t seem to set much of a standard, if any. It just grates at me that about half the news readers at CBC refer to it as the news with a soft, sibilant s at the end, as in noose. The first part of the word is as in newt, which sounds correct, but to end in a soft s sounds very affected. It’s as though a misguided fad has taken hold of them.
No. It’s a common variant pronunciation and is standard in the UK.
Frankly, I’ve never heard the pronunciation described in the OP by any newscaster. I can’t think of any reason they would – it’s not standard, and it makes “news” into "noose,’ hardly an effect anyone would be going for.