I don't think a news "forum" would be a good idea, but a news postboard or something would. Where you could put up a URL and a brief description, but not any lengthy comments or discussions could go on about it. This would not clutter up the main page, and only the topics that a few people thought were truly important and should be debated would be brought up in another forum for discussion. So, yeh, a postboard I think would be a good idea, but not a news-based forum.