I'll help as best I can, but I'm somewhat new to all this myself
I have no idea what the error you are getting is, I'm sorry.
The way to set up the News module is in Admin Cp go to VbA CMPS -> Edit Modules -> News (or whatever you have named your news module) -> scroll down to News Options
In that section, make sure to select the forum(s) you want the module to pull from. Check all the other options there too. Then you need to make sure the forum has the news to actually pull. Are you using an RSS feed? If so, you will need to set that up to feed into that forum. Check the feed - make sure it is working properly. Is it displaying correctly in the forum itself? If you have done all this and re-checked to make sure it is done right, then I am not sure what the problem is.