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

6. Example

Indonesian Wins US Short Movie Maker

An Indonesian filmmaker has won the second “Democracy Video Challenge” competition held by the US State Department, and hopes is work can promote Indonesian democracy to the world.
“ I hope with this movie, the rest e world of the acknowledge Indonesian democracy. Democracy is not just a noun but a process, and there’s something amiss in Indonesian’s democratic processes,” Adhyatmika or Mika, told a press conference at the US Embassy in Jakarta on Friday.
Mika, a graduate from Puttnam School of Film, Lasalle College of the arts in Singapore, called his work as”a dark humor” movie.
“I decided to translate my understanding of Indonesian democracy through a “dark humor” movie because if I tell it in a serious way, people won’t see it,” he said.
US Assistant Cultural Attache Arend C. Zwartjes said the movie reflected the message of the competition.
“We didn’t want to tell the world about democracy according to our own concept, but we wanted the world share many concepts of democracy,” he explained.
Mika won a two-week trip to the US next October together with other winners from Iran, Spain, Colombia, Nepal, and Ethiopia. The group will have an interview at Today’s Show at NBC and are slated to meet the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“What drives me to take part in this competition was the chance for the winner to meet Hillary Clinton, and if I meet her, I’ll have an opportunity to tell her about Indonesian democracy,” Mika said as quoted by Antara news agency. He admitted in making his movie he was influenced by Wes Anderson, an American movie director who was nominated for a 2001 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for “ The Royal Tenenbaums”.
Source: September 6,2010 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/…
 
Did you know?
Newspaper language is not same as the ordinary English. They prefer words that are usually shorter and distinctive.