It is singular. I can't think of any time when it is used in plural. For example, you would say, "The news COVERS daily events." NOT "The news cover daily events." Or you would say, "It is on!" referring that the news is on TV now. You would never say, they're on, or the news were/are wrong.

The words "news" falls into the category of collective nouns. News is a collection of media that inform us of events. Collective nouns can be usually treated as a single thing. As an example: This team has a good record.