BBC News : Icann increases web domain suffixes

There's no generic "News" company. This TLD would be too contested for ICANN to give it to anyone.

On the other hand, ICANN can make it a TLD in the likes of .com or .net, or maybe they'll see NewsCorp as a legitimate claim.

And you need to pay 185 kUSD and a long and expensive approval process. I think the big difference is that not anyone can register a gTLD in the same way that you register a .com or .whatever. Also, new rules apply to the registries, so if you are doing "bad" stuff ICANN can remove your registry and bye bye.