News is the beating heart of most intranets, and SharePoint has a built-in News web part to surface it. It's fine for the basics - but anyone running a busy communications programme soon wants more control over how stories look and which ones lead. Here's what the native web part does, where it stops, and how to go further while still using your existing SharePoint news.
What the native News web part does
- Shows news posts from this site, selected sites, or a hub.
- A handful of layouts (top story, list, side-by-side, carousel, hub news).
- Basic filtering by site, and automatic ordering by date.
Where the native options stop
- You can't reorder or pin stories - the newest simply wins, so an important post drops off fast.
- No "breaking" flag or manual curation to keep a key story at the top.
- Limited visual treatments - no editorial/bento or masonry layouts, source pills or accent colours.
- No simple "hide posts whose title contains" filter to keep noise out.
The supported way: an SPFx news web part with curation
A SharePoint Framework (SPFx) web part reads the same published SharePoint news, as the signed-in user, and adds the control native news lacks. Glow Cloud Kit Newsroom pulls live news from this site, selected sites or the whole tenant into eight layouts - including Editorial (bento) and Mosaic (masonry) - with coloured source pills, an accent colour bank, and in-page curation: pin, reorder and flag breaking stories, which native news can't do. A "hide posts whose title contains" filter keeps the feed clean. No Graph permission is needed for the news itself; optional audience targeting uses one read-only scope.
A checklist for a strong news feed
- Decide the source: this site, selected sites, or a tenant-wide roll-up.
- Pick a layout that suits the volume - editorial for a few big stories, mosaic for many.
- Pin or flag the one or two stories that must lead this week.
- Set a title filter to exclude routine or automated posts.
- Check thumbnails and titles render well on mobile.
Related
- Glow Cloud Kit Newsroom - the product overview.
- Newsroom setup guide - install and configuration steps.
- How to make SharePoint look modern.