News item is to inform the readers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important. Is structure is:
• 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 authorities’ expert on the event.
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
There are some rules that can help to make newspaper headlines more comprehensible.
- The passive voice is used without the appropriate form of “be”.
- It is unusual to find complex forms, generally the simple present form is used
- The present progressive tense is used, usually to describe something that is changing or developing, but the auxiliary verb is usually left out.
- To refer to the future, headlines often use the infinitive.
- Headlines are not always complete sentences.
