Best News WordPress Themes 2022
best news theme (xogside)When you’re creating and curating a news site, design is everything. Readers want to get straight to the information they’re looking for. They don’t want unclear navigation or a visually overwhelming interface to get in their way. That’s why choosing the right theme for the job is critical; after all, there are plenty of poorly designed news themes out there.
The specific features to look for when picking a news theme will vary with your site’s purpose, but you’ll certainly want to choose a theme that prioritizes readability and ease of navigation. You’ll also want to make sure that the theme is impeccably optimized for search engines, since readers want only the most relevant, up to date news content. Additionally, easy support for ads is a must if you’re planning to monetize your site.
To help you make the right decision, we’ve compiled a list of the best WordPress news themes out there. Let’s get started!
1. SmartMag
SmartMag is a powerful and highly versatile news WordPress theme.
With a huge list of features, SmartMag is an impressive WordPress theme for creating news websites. As this theme has been a popular option for creating content-rich websites for a few years now, it’s not only amassed a large user base but also grown in terms of the features that you get access to and the types of news sites it’s suitable for.
Just taking a quick look at the changelog reveals how much this theme has been upgraded and improved since its initial release. However, if you really want to get to know SmartMag better, viewing the website demos that come with this theme is a great place to start. Doing so lets you test drive the 15 ready-made news website demos that you can import into your WordPress dashboard when you purchase SmartMag.
The demos do cover a wide range of news sites, making this a theme that should appeal to a wide audience. Some examples of those demos include designs for sites that cover gadgets, the latest tech news, financial updates, and sports to name just a few. The demos all look very different from each other, rather than just being slight variations on a core design.
Thanks to the flexibility of SmartMag, you can easily repurpose the demos. Therefore, if you’re creating a travel news site but like the look of the sports demo, for example, it won’t take much time or effort to adjust it so that it works well for your project. You can also customize the demos even further, using the supported Elementor page builder to personalize them as much as you want.
The demos aren’t the only reason to choose SmartMag, though. As mentioned, this theme has lots of features to help your website become a success. Some examples include the large library of content elements that you can add to your pages to enhance them, the social sharing tools to help your content go viral, and the autoloading of posts to keep visitors engaged for longer.
SmartMag is a great example of an advanced news WordPress theme that’s also easy to use.
2. Newspaper
Often the best themes are the ones designed for a specific purpose, which take the needs of a certain type of user into account. Newspaper is such a theme – it’s built intentionally for news and magazine websites.
With over 85,000 happy customers and counting, Newspaper is accessible to inexperienced users, while still providing plenty of professional-level options. It’s a mobile-optimized theme that’s fast, uncluttered, and prioritizes performance and functionality. Plus, it can take the strain of lots of content and high-resolution images while keeping load times down.
The intuitive and easy-to-use interface makes the design process just as quick – especially with over 50 pre-built demos to choose from. If you’d like to dive into creating your own layouts, you can do so with either of two bundled page builder plugins – tagDiv Composer or WPBakery – and the frontend CSS editor. Moreover, creating articles and author, category, or search pages has never been easier than now, with the use of the tagDiv Cloud Library which gathers hundreds of pre-designed templates. Just import a template and customize it with the tagDiv Composer builder, right on the front end!
In addition, there are dozens of news-oriented widgets for weather, social media, exchange markets, and more. There’s also a built-in rating system, as well as the option to embed videos from around the web. Finally, Newspaper is fully optimized for Google AdSense and comes programmed with a system that auto-detects ads and makes them immediately responsive.
We like Newspaper, and we think you will too! This modern, engaging theme might just be what you’re looking for if you want a fast and responsive website to publish content to multiple online channels.
3. Zeen
When you’re running a news website, you need a theme such as Zeen that offers both an aesthetically-pleasing design and well-optimized functionality.
This next generation news and magazine theme offers a beautiful style that is more up-to-date and sleek than what you’ll get from most alternatives. It includes 30 premium pre-built sites, and can be used for everything from personal blogs to full-fledged online magazines.
Zeen is designed to work with WooCommerce, making it easy to build a shop for your news site. This theme is highly customizable and optimized for both speed and SEO. It also comes with features that are unique and largely specific to news sites, such as areas for sponsored posts, various advertising locations, and clickable background ads.
If you’re looking for a fast, smooth, and contemporary news theme, Zeen might be the right fit.
4. TheGem
When it comes to building a news website, layout is critical. With so much content to present, you need a clear way to navigate it all, without confusing your readers. Fortunately, TheGem has you covered.
TheGem has a stylish and modern feel, combined with a host of additional features. With plenty of navigation options, as well as header and footer customization, you have the freedom to create a layout that matches your unique requirements. In this way, you’ll be able to feature your news content for maximum engagement.
Furthermore, TheGem is easy to use and bundled with the WPBakery Page Builder plugin for seamless design. It includes over 400 demo layouts, flexible page creation options, a powerful admin interface, and much more besides.
If you’re looking for a flexible option with the power to build your news site to an exacting specification, TheGem is sure to make your shortlist!
5. The Issue
It’s likely you’ll be publishing a lot of regular content on your news website. Therefore, you’ll need a theme that’s both flexible and easy to use. Fortunately, The Issue passes both of those tests with flying colors.
The Issue comes packed with a wide range of demos and templates, which helps you hit the ground running. Much of this demo content is ideally suited to publishing and displaying news articles. What’s more, there are various post format, gallery display, and review style options to pick from, giving you a lot of choice over how your content appears.
Social media integration is also vital for a news-focused site, and The Issue simplifies that process. You can display share counts on articles, include links to your social profiles, and provide simple ways for readers to share your content with their own followers.
This theme is designed from the ground up for building attractive, feature-rich news and magazine sites, and its attention to detail shows. There’s no doubt that The Issue belongs on your shortlist!
6. PenNews
When building a news website, it’s essential to create a home page that showcases a variety of visually-striking articles. However, many news themes aren’t designed with minimalism in mind. With PenNews, you can avoid this pitfall.
Out of the box, the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin lets you arrange your site elements with ease via a drag-and-drop interface. Also bundled with PenNews is the Convert Plug plugin, which is extremely useful for growing and managing your email subscriber list.
What separates PenNews from the competition is the huge scope at your disposal for layout customization. You’re given the option to play around with more than 40 content block styles, over ten grid layouts, as well as a broad array of custom video playlist and gallery styles.
Regardless of whether your news site is focused on a specific niche, PenNews is great value for money, and should become part of your theme shortlist!
7. Prime News
One of the cornerstones of the internet is the freely-available news on practically every subject imaginable. This means news sites are big business. However, without a theme to match your niche, such as Prime News, you might fail to capitalize on your readers’ interest.
When it comes to news sites, minimalism often takes a back seat. This is understandable, given the natural desire to pack every pixel with content. However, Prime News manages to include plenty of features without cluttering up the screen.
For example, there are both slide-in and more traditional navigation options, image sliders, ticker bars, videos, ad space, and much more. Despite this, the home page doesn’t come across as overwhelming. In addition, all of these elements can be customized either via the Live Customizer or the dedicated Theme Options panel.
Overall, Prime News isn’t at all one-dimensional, despite its initial appearance. Regardless of the type of news site you’re building, you should be able to use this theme to sculpt an engaging, captivating, and engrossing final product.
8. Jannah
When it comes to news reporting, reputation is everything. Although it should be based largely on your journalistic efforts, your website’s visuals also have a part to play. Thankfully, there’s a theme that can help you stand out – Jannah.
A primary concern of this theme’s developers was clearly to help you get your site up and running quickly. There is an absolute wealth of demo templates to choose from – each installed with just one click – encompassing a wide variety of niches. To customize your layouts further (or to design your own from scratch), you can turn to the built-in drag-and-drop page builder.
While many other themes stop there, Jannah offers some thoughtful additions that could be a deal maker. For example, there’s an option to automatically remove duplicate content – without this feature, you could see a negative impact to your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In addition, this theme includes desktop notification functionality, so your regular visitors can get breaking news without having to navigate to your website.
If you were to casually skim the demos and sales page, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Jannah is just another ‘me too’ theme. However, it includes some very useful features, all wrapped up in a stylish design. Overall, Jannah is a theme we wholeheartedly recommend!
9. MagPlus
When you’re building a news website, you want it to be fast, responsive, and flexible. Users need to be able to navigate from article to article smoothly, and you’ll want access to plenty of features that can help you improve their experience.
Fortunately, MagPlus is here to help you out. This theme is designed specifically for news sites and similar niches, and that focus pays off. It’s well optimized for mobile devices, and boasts very fast load times. What’s more, MagPlus is translation-ready, and integrates easily with AdSense so you can monetize your articles.
To help you design a site that grabs readers’ attention and encourages them to stick around, there are lots of options when it comes to tweaking its appearance. MagPlus comes with many layouts to get you started, and over 30 templates that are suited to a wide range of subjects. There are also a variety of header and article layouts, sliders, widgets, and other pre-built elements.
If you want to build a fast, stylish news site quickly, MagPlus has your back. With this theme you’ll be up and running in no time, and your visitors will have an excellent experience every time.
10. Voice
When browsing through the Voice theme, the word that perhaps most prominently comes to mind is “elegance.” The combination of a flat, boxy design with bold colors creates a pleasing effect – perhaps not particularly artistic, but certainly pleasing on the eye.
As with some other themes in this collection, Voice offers color-coded categories, which can be practically useful when your site publishes articles on a wide range of topics. The full-width manual slider with subtle CSS3 effects on the homepage does a great job of featuring a variety of stories, and the attractive visual experience continues through to the article pages.
The typography – arguably all-important on a news theme – is not perhaps as striking as one would hope. In a theme that tends to exude style far more often than not, the fonts seem a little unimaginative and plain. Having said that, Voice offers simple font customization, so if you have the time and inclination to find your own striking font combination, you can impart your own style on the design.
11. Networker
Networker is a WordPress theme for creating tech news websites and online magazines.
If you want to launch a website where you can publish review of gadgets and similar products as well as share the latest tech news, then Networker has lots of features you’re sure to find useful. The six website demos that come with Networker are each focused on a different type of tech news, including designs aimed at apps, startups, and creative news, to name just a few. However, as this theme is very flexible, you don’t have to use the demos for their recommended purposes. If there’s any aspect of tech news that you’d like to cover, there’s a high chance that this theme and its templates would work well.
Each demo has its own set of templates for publishing individual articles, giving you lots of choices each time you add a new article to your site. There are also many different archive templates to make use of, too. Choosing where to display the sidebar or whether to display one at all can be decided on an individual post and page basis. All of the prebuilt content of Networker has been optimized for smartphone devices, ensuring that your audience can quickly and easily access your content, no matter how they are viewing your site.
In addition to the large library of templates, Networker has many useful features to make your news site more user friendly. Some examples of these features include the ability to autoload the next article once a visitor gets to the end of the current piece of content they are reading, a live search tool to make it easier for readers to find what they’re looking for, and social media integration to help you display more useful content on your site. AdSense integration is included too, giving you an easy way to monetize your site.
Networker also comes with a selection of custom blocks for the latest version of the WordPress editor.
12. ZoxPress
Many news websites share the same cluttered look because their themes give them little flexibility to offer much else. ZoxPress, on the other hand, comes with a streamlined design and modern features to keep your readers engaged.
This theme gives you access to 100 different layout and style combinations to suit any niche. You can install one of many pre-built demos with one click, and customize them with various header options and over 900 Google fonts. You can also choose from stunning post layouts to make your articles stand out.
In addition, ZoxPress enables you to place in-line parallax ads that will appear as the user scrolls down the page. It even comes with a night mode option, which is easier on your readers’ eyes. You can also enable automatic loading for your posts, and monitor the results with Google Analytics to gauge your audience’s interests.
Overall, if you are looking for a multipurpose news theme with reader-friendly features, ZoxPress could be an excellent choice. This fully responsive design can captivate your audience and keep them focused on your content.
13. Newspaper
Newspaper is a beautiful news theme with elegant typography. It has the same name as the previous theme on this list, sold on ThemeForest, so don’t get it confused — this one is from the folks at MyThemeShop. The design is simply stunning; it combines a very photo-centric interface with a fitting amount of white space. You’ll find the same story even with the megamenu navigation: images again take central priority.
The responsive layout focuses on a functional front end interface, so you have multiple options to filter posts by tags like popularity, brand, specially “featured” posts, etc. If you’re planning to monetize your news site with AdSense, then you’re in luck because Newspaper comes with powerful AdSense integration that optimizes ad placement for maximum CTR. As added bonuses, the theme is also optimized for search engines, speed, and translation.
Clearly, it would be hard to go wrong with Newspaper.
14. Herald
Herald is a business-like, straightforward news theme. While it’s less elegant than some of the other news themes available, it manages to pack a lot of content onto the page while still being easy to navigate.
Like many of the themes in this collection, Herald offers a large amount of design customization. It features modules that enable more than 500 different layout combinations, as well as a customizable header. You can easily color code categories, create multi-page posts, and enable infinite scroll. A related posts feature is built-in, and you have the option to create posts that feature audio, video, images, or galleries.
Monetization is straightforward, with predefined locations for ads on home pages, archive pages, and posts. Herald also ships with a Theme Translator that enables you to create translations of all parts of your website in the Theme Options panel.
15. Newsbeat
When you think about newspapers, you imagine clean lines, big photos, long paragraphs, and tons of information. If you’re looking for a theme that embodies the spirit of a newspaper, Newsbeat could be a fantastic choice.
This theme includes nine pre-built demos you can use as a starting point for your website. They range from classic layouts to more modern tech beats and beauty blogs. They all (of course) have written content in common. With Newsbeat, you get beautiful typography and large images to draw in the eyes of your readers.
If you want to customize your news website, Newsbeat bundles in the WPBakery Page Builder plugin, which enables you to tweak almost any aspect of your design and add new features. Beyond this, Newsbeat comes with five different styles of headers and over 25 layouts to use.
To keep up with the news, you’ll need a theme that provides the functionality essential to running a blog, online magazine, or news website. Checking out Newsbeat could be the only scoop you need to break!
16. MH Magazine
With the high volume of content displayed by your news website, it’s important that its layout is clean and inviting – otherwise, visitors may go elsewhere for their daily news fix. For a theme that offers an uncluttered design with flexible layout options, consider MH Magazine.
The theme offers more than 26 widget locations including a fully widgetized front page template to create flexible layouts, and prominent sections to display advertising. A large number of custom widgets are available to display content such as posts based on categories or tags, social media, YouTube videos, and more.
Important news stories can be displayed prominently with the bundled FlexSlider 2 plugin, and a jQuery news ticker is also included, for short, rolling news items.
Matching your website’s style to your branding is possible with a custom logo uploader, an extensive color palette, and a wide selection of Google Fonts. If you wish to make further customizations to MH Magazine, the developers have included files to create a child theme.
Overall, MH Magazine is ideal for those needing a clean design coupled with a flexible layout to deliver daily news content.
17. NewsTimes
NewsTime offers a type of ‘flat’ design that seems ever more popular with each passing day. It combines the allure of prominent photography with an ease of navigation that is not always found on news sites.
The stylish design continues into the individual article pages, with parallax scrolling on the featured image and a simple yet functional content/sidebar layout. The theme includes functionality that one would typically consider important for a news site, such as as “Related Articles” widget and an author byline widget.
The Theme Options panel and drag-and-drop Homepage Layout Manager will ensure that you can customize NewsTime to your satisfaction. And at just $35, it’s a strong contender amongst the top themes in this collection.
18. The Voux 
The Voux is a gorgeous news theme with a very fluid design. Everything about it screams fashion: the typography, the animations, the bold images, even the name. You’ll see some really exquisite scroll effects when you view the demo, like social buttons that fly in when you hover over a share counter.
This theme comes with a lot of backend functionality that’s ideal for news themes. We’ve already discussed the social icon animation, but did you know that you can also customize your share counter so that the count resets after a specific period of time? The megamenu too is elegant, but without being overly complicated. Support for infinite scroll is also built-in.
With a striking design that’s sure to arrest every new visitor’s attention, The Voux is an excellent choice for any up-and-coming magazine site.
19. ZoxPress
News comes in many formats. You have entertainment websites, network portals, sports sites, and many more. Every one of these projects requires a different type of approach. However, Zoxpress offers a flexible setup that can help you tackle all of them.
This theme gives you over a dozen layouts for different types of news websites, across all manner of niches. The designs are clean and modern across the board, but Zoxpress includes many small touches to differentiate between them. Plus, it enables you to mix and match layout elements to design a news website to your exact requirements.
Zoxpress also includes several features to make your reader’s lives easier. For example, the theme supports infinite scrolling and includes a dark mode design. This means visitors can read in low light and restrict eye strain.
In summary, if your news organization needs to be versatile, Zoxpress offers you a wealth of design possibilities we can recommend.
20. Grand News
It’s difficult to sum up the appearance of Grand News in one sentence, because the theme offers so many possible design combinations and layouts. The unifying principle, though, is modern and clean design.
The area where this theme shines brightest is its pre-built demo layouts. These include General News, Technology News, Lifestyle and Magazine, Fashion News, Sport News, and Design Magazine. Each of these is a fully functional, beautifully designed news site that you can load with just one click. This makes Grand News a perfect option if you just want to get started and focus on your content.
That being said, Grand News includes plenty of customization options for those who want to tinker with design. A drag and drop content builder and a shortcode generator plugin enable you to modify your site design in nearly infinite ways. Further design customization is also possible with the inclusion of over 500 Google Fonts and a variety of gallery display options including slideshow and parallax.
21. Woohoo
Woohoo is another news theme that gives you lots of customization options. Its default styles are suitable for a variety of purposes, with Tech, Health, Fashion, and Sport demo layouts included. You can install all of these with just one click, letting you focus on your content. Note that all of these demo themes include lots of scroll, hover, and transition animations, which may not suit everyone’s design sensibilities.
Woohoo includes and supports a lot of different plugins right out of the box. The iLightbox plugin is included, enabling you to create a variety of different images galleries. Also included is the LayerSlider plugin, which lets you create over 200 different sliding transition effects. Finally, the theme supports the WPML translation plugin and WooCommerce.
You can also customize the site’s design with a drag and drop page builder and 11 different post layouts. In addition, support for all Google Fonts and an unlimited number of sidebar elements is included.
22. Newspaper Kolyoum
News websites don’t need to be flashy, they need to be informative. You need a theme that enables you to share breaking news with your audience and keep them engaged — enter Kolyoum.
You get a sober design with Kolyoum that focuses on the news. The theme makes excellent use of multiple grid layouts that highlight your article’s featured images and pull readers where you’d like them to go. Out of the box, Kolyoum includes designs for tech, fashion, and sports news sites, among many other options.
Kolyoum also comes with several pre-built blocks you can use to add key sections to your pages, including featured news, galleries, and comments sections. There are six premium plugins bundled in, including WPBakery Page Builder and Slider Revolution, which gives you even more control over your website.
In a nutshell, Kolyoum will be a good fit if you need a versatile theme that doesn’t hamper your ability to publish breaking news as it happens. It’s a worthy contender that deserves a place on your shortlist.
23. 15Zine
15Zine is a versatile news theme that’s perfect for a multicategory magazine site. The theme comes with some really cool features out of the box, like the built-in review system. This system enables you to manage a network of product reviews across your site, while using the same post format, criteria list, and rating structure. A front end rating system is also possible, which allows site visitors to vote on the quality of the content they read.
The design bears witness to most of the current trends, including thick typography, tons of white space, and king-sized images.
If there’s one area the theme falls short, it’s the megamenu, which is a little slow to load. Even so, 15Zine boasts a near-perfect 4.95 star rating on ThemeForest after 1500+ sales. So you know that overall, this is definitely a top-quality theme.
24. Papr
A lot of news agencies are stuck in the past with boring, outdated websites. As compelling as the news might be, your website needs to offer a stellar user experience to keep readers around. Papr hopes to fulfill that promise.
There are nine unique home page layouts and multiple options for post archives included in this theme. The designs make excellent use of negative space and give you a canvas on which to realize your vision. The result is a news website that doesn’t feel cluttered and provides readability.
Papr is fully compatible with the bundled Elementor page builder plugin. This means you can easily modify any of its pre-built layouts or build new pages of your own using the theme’s elements. Plus, it works seamlessly with WooCommerce out of the box, which makes it a great option for online stores.
Overall, we can recommend Papr if you’re looking for a news theme that’s both modern and easy to use. It’s an ideal theme for up-and-coming news organizations, although you’ll likely stick with it for time to come.
25. Independent
News websites need to offer a broad range of information in a way that makes it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for. This is a tall order, but the Independent theme does an admirable job, and it could be the right choice to help you deliver the news your way.
There’s not a lot of ‘flash’ when it comes to Independent. It provides a broad range of pre-built demos and layouts you can import with a single click, all of them based on simple, clean grids. There are very few color accents too, as Independent keeps the focus on your writing.
However, this approach is not a bad thing. With Independent, you get a theme that’s optimized for performance, and it also comes bundled with the WPBakery Page Builder plugin, which makes it easy to customize to your liking. The theme also integrates with the WP Multilingual plugin, which makes it a great choice for international news websites.
If you’re looking for a theme that helps you deliver the news in a timely fashion with a clean, sober look, take a look at Independent. It could be the right fit for your needs.
26. GoodLife
GoodLife is a theme that keeps things clean and simple. Straightforward typography and minimal background textures keep your content front and center.
Like many of the themes in this collection, GoodLife comes with several built-in demo sites (seven, to be exact). Most notably, it includes a Music and Game configuration, so it could be a good choice if you’re publishing about either of those topics and don’t want to fiddle with design options.
In addition, GoodLife includes all the features you would expect in a news theme, such as built-in locations for ads, a variety display templates, and support for gallery and video posts. Finally, the theme ships with the WPBakery Page Builder and Essential Grid plugins, which give you complete drag and drop control over your site’s design.
27. Newsroom
Everything about Newsroom is understated and elegant. Scrolling through its demo page is a lot like reading an old-school print magazine.
Yet beneath its apparent simplicity lies a lot of power and support for as many layouts and media types as your content requires. The theme includes six Home Page templates that you can load with one click, and it also supports Link, Quote, Audio, Video, and Gallery post formats. To complement these custom post formats, the theme enables you to create category-specific layouts and sidebars.
Rounding things off, Newsroom also includes subtle features such as a “Breaking News” widget, a “Back to Top” button, and support for drop down menus that contain videos, images, or widgets. Design customization is straightforward with the free inclusion of the WPBakery Page Builder plugin.
28. Legatus
Legatus is a very powerful news theme with a fashionable appearance.
First off, the one thing that sets this theme apart from all the others we’ve so far looked at is its clear social media integration. Right on the home page is a set of social sharing buttons for readers to spread the word about your site. The theme’s typography, though, is a bit clashy, as various font sizes roam each page, making it look a bit uneven.
The theme’s built-in drag-and-drop page builder, WPBakery, allows you to create complex page layouts in minutes. Another unique feature is the weather report, a feature that automatically detects the location of a reader and displays the temperature along with current state of weather (sunny, cloudy, rainy, or snowy) at the top right corner of your website. Tons of shortcodes, unlimited sidebars, and numerous helpful resources from the support team make Legatus an even better buy.
29. Sahifa
With hundreds of design and functionality options, Sahifa is without a doubt a fully-featured theme. Unfortunately, the plethora of included features takes precedence over the theme’s actual design, which is quite busy and visually overwhelming by default.
Despite this, Sahifa is still worth considering for a news site. A Custom Admin panel allows you to edit all theme options in one central location, and a drag and drop page builder is available for customizing the home page. Compatibility with the WPML plugin also makes Sahifa translation-ready.
Distinctive features include sticky sidebars, a widget that displays the current weather, and support for Ajax Live Search. Eight default skins are included, although, as mentioned above, their default design is a little too busy for our tastes.
30. NewsPlus
NewsPlus is a sleek WordPress theme with a full, structured design.
A slight problem arises with the NewsPlus design — even though all the elements in the design are very structured, they are not very distinct from each other. More pronounced lines separating various links and post summaries are necessary when so many different posts are places on the front page. That aside, however, NewsPlus is as good as any on this list from a designer’s perspective.
More impressive is the capability NewsPlus has to offer: both fullscreen and boxed options are provided, as are two locations for sticky navigation. Optimized 100% for SEO, the theme comes with proportional layout scaling, translation-ready files, two custom post formats, Flex Slider, and a visual shortcode generator. 6 custom widgets, an Ajax contact form with field validation, and social sharing integration are all included.
