News Item

1. Definition

• News item is a factual text which informs the readers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important.

2. Social Function

• The social function of news item is to inform readers, listeners or viewers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important.

3. Generic Structure

• Newsworthy Event(s): recounts the events in summary form. 
• Background Event(s): elaborate what happened, to WHOM, in WHAT circumstances.
• Sources: comments by participants in, witnesses to, and expert on the event.

4. Significant Grammar Features

• Short, telegraphic information about story captured in headline 
• Generally using Simple Past Tense 
• Use of Material Processes to retell the event 
• Using Action Verbs, e.g.: were, run, go, kill, etc. 
• Using Saying Verbs, e.g.: say, tell 
• Focus on Circumstances 
• Use of projecting Verbal Processes in Sources stages

5. Some rules that can help to make newspaper headlines more comprehensible

• The passive voice is used without the appropriate form of “be”. 
• Example: Town ‘Contaminated’
• Complete Sentence: Town is contaminated.

• It is unusual to find complex forms, generally the simple present form is used 
• Example: Fire Destroys over 2,511 acres of Forest in 2003-2004
• Complete Sentence: Fire has destroyed over 2,511 acres of forest in 2003-2004.

• The present progressive tense is used, usually to describe something that is changing or developing, but the auxiliary verb is usually left out. 
• Example: World Heading for Energy Crisis
• Complete Sentence: The world is heading for an energy crisis.

• To refer to the future, headlines often use the infinitive. 
• Example: Queen to Visit Samoa.
• Complete Sentence: The Queen is going to visit Samoa.

• Headlines are not always complete sentences. 
• Example: More earthquakes in Japan. 
• Complete Sentence: More earthquakes happened in Japan