news vs hard news

news and hard news both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
news	Yes	No	No	No
hard news	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, hard news is a hyponym of news; that is, hard news is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than news:

news (noun)	hard news (noun)
the quality of being sufficiently interesting to be reported in news bulletins	news that deals with serious topics or events
information about recent and important events
information reported in a newspaper or news magazine
a program devoted to current events, often using interviews and commentary
informal information of any kind that is not previously known to someone