News Item

Definition

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

Generic Structure 

1. Newsworthy event ( tells the main event in a summary form) 

 

     2. Background events/Elaboration (elaborate what happened, tell what caused the incident. It canbe a background, participant, time, and placerelating to the news)

3. Sources (comments by participants, witnesses, authorities and experts involved in the event) 

 

Language Feature of News Item

 

1. Information on the use of head lines.

2. Use of action verbs (hit, attack).

3. Use of saying verbs ( said, added, claimed).

4. Use of passive sentences (Aceh was hit by Tsunami in 2004).

5. Use of adverbs in passive sentences (The victims were badly injured). 

 

Examples and structures of the text:

Town Contaminated

Newsworthy events :

Moscow – A Russian journalist has uncovered evidence of another Soviet nuclear catastrophe, which killed 10 sailors and contaminated an entire town.

Background Events :

Yelena Vazrshavskya is the first journalist to speak to people who witnessed the explosion of a nuclear submarine at the naval base of shkotovo – 22 near Vladivostock.
The accident, which occurred 13 months before the Chernobyl disaster, spread radioactive fall-out over the base and nearby town, but was covered up by officials of the Soviet Union. Residents were told the explosion in the reactor of the Victor-class submarine during a refit had been a ‘thermal’ and not a nuclear explosion. And those involved in the clean up operation to remove more than 600 tones of contaminated material were sworn to secrecy.

Source :

Sources A board of investigators was later to describe it as the worst accident in the history of the Soviet Navy.