NEWS ITEM

News Item  

 

News item is factual text which infroms the readers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important

Function of news item :
Social function of news items is to infrom readers, listeners or viewers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important.

 

- Generic structure:
* Newsworthy event(s) : recounts the events in summary form.
* Background event(s) : elaborate what happend , to WHOM, in WHAT circumstance.
* Sources : Comments by participants in, witnesses to and authorities expert on the event.

 
- Significant Granma features:
~ Short, telegraphic information about story captured in headline.
~ Generally using Simple Past Tense
~ Use of material priocesses to retell the event
~ Using Action verbs, ex: run, go, kill, etc
~ Using saying verbs, ex: say, tell
~ Focus on circumstances
~ Use of projecting verbal processes in sources stage.

There an some rules that can help to make newspaper headlines more comprehensible:
1. The passive voice is used without the appropriate from of “be’
2. It is unusual to find complex forms, generally the simple present form is used
3. The present progressive tense is used, usually to describe something that is changing or developing,but the auxiliary verb is usually left out.
4. To refer to the future, headlines often use the infinitive
5. Headlines are not always complete sentence

Linguistic features :

* Action verbs.
* Verbal verbs.
* Mental verbs.
* Temporal circumstances.
* Spatial circumstances.
* Specific participants.

- A headline is the text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article
below it.
Read some newspaper headlines below:
1. Michael Jackson’s last album “This is it” will be on the market in November.
2. Rupiah becomes stronger at the end of this week