--- a/bootstrap.conf	Wed Dec 08 14:50:03 2021 +0900
+++ b/bootstrap.conf	Wed Dec 08 15:38:17 2021 +0900
@@ -217,9 +217,10 @@
   ## Check for files that automake --gnu would normally look for, except
   ## AUTHORS, which we autogenerate from the documentation files along
   ## with building the rest of Octave, and INSTALL, which is linked from
-  ## gnulib/doc/INSTALL by the bootstrap script.
+  ## gnulib/doc/INSTALL by the bootstrap script.  NEWS is autogenerated
+  ## from etc/NEWS.x.
 
-  for f in NEWS README COPYING CITATION; do
+  for f in README COPYING CITATION; do
     if ! test -f $f; then
       echo "required file $f is missing" 2>&1
       exit 1