should the en-wiki be encouraging the 'news' type items over to Wikinews, or embracing them as a core strength of the project....
I'd say news ought to be kept on Wikinews. Wikipedia reporting on current affairs tends to result in timeline articles and new bits keep getting added to the end. Major events tend to get enough attention that someone sooner or later refactors them into decent articles, but lesser (but still notable) events get left as "As of 17th April, ... . As of 18th April, ... . As of the afternoon of 18th April, ... . etc". Reporting the news on Wikinews and then writing a quality article after the fact would result in Wikinews getting the attention it deserves and Wikipedia getting good encyclopaedic articles.