The news forum is a great way to achieve what you're looking for as Jon suggested -- the posts will email out to your students.
If you're worried students will 'reply,' as in, you're looking for a way to send one-way communication and don't want students to add discussions or reply to your news announcements, try going into the Permissions of the forum and remove the student capabilities to 'reply to posts' and 'start new discussions' and such.
The other good reason to use the forum to send your announcements and files is that a record is maintained within the module. You can even use the "Description" in the Forum Settings to post your latest announcement so it also appears on the course page when students enter the course.