How would i add pages of post_type new to display in the Wordpress Recent Posts widget

Hi

I am looking at the default widget for WP_Widget_Recent_Posts and i see this query

$r = new WP_Query( apply_filters( 'widget_posts_args', array( 'posts_per_page' => $number, 'no_found_rows' => true, 'post_status' => 'publish', 'ignore_sticky_posts' => true ) ) );

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Is there any way i can modify this to include custom pages of post_type news as these have a featured images just like posts.

I could just write the query myself but I dont understand how the filters are being applied

Thanks a lot for any help you can give