News is a form of broadcast protocol. Articles are posted, and are exchanged on stored on newsservers throughout the network. In the Unix world, common agents are programs such as rn, trn, vn, and various newsreaders with Emacs, such as gnus. In the PC world, there are programs such as Agent.
Most browsers also provide support for news.
So, how is news different than the web. In news, one typically subscribes to newsgroups, and then reads the articles in that group, in a manner similar to a bulletin board. It also supports more discussion, and threading of discussion.