News Item: is factual text which informs the readers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important.

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

Generic structure:

v Newsworthy Event(s): recounts the events in summary form

v Background Event(s): elaborate what happened, to WHOM, in WHAT circumstances.

v 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.

1. The passive voice is used without the appropriate form of “be”.

Example: Town ‘Contaminated’

Complete Sentence: Town is contaminated.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. To refer to the future, headlines often use the infinitive.

Example: Queen to Visit Samoa.

Complete Sentence: The Queen is going to visit Samoa.

5. Headlines are not always complete sentences.

Example: More earthquakes in Japan.

Complete Sentence: More earthquakes happened in Japan.

A Korean Force of Nature

Newsworthy event	In just three years, Korean pop star Rain Has built a huge domestic following of (mostly) female fans with a string of chart-topping singles, and now he’s ready to branch out overseas.
Background events	Rain picked up MTV Asia prizes this year, played his first solo concert in Japan in July and has lined up sold-out gigs in Hong Kong and Tokyo. But the engine of Korean pop-culture dominance in Asia is the soap opera, which is why Rain is forecast for TV this fall. The decidedly boyish singer will play a macho K-1 fighter who falls for his brother’s lover in a series tentatively titled A Loved to Kill. Though the show is set to air first in Korea this October, the astounding popularity of Korean TV dramas around the region means that the pop star could soon become a familiar face throughout Asia. But why stop there? Rain’s managers believe he could be the first Korean star to break into the U.S. market. Park Jin Young, the pop impresario who discovered and trained Rain, is a talented dancer and songwriter who has worked with U.S. artists like Mase and Will Smith. Since setting up camp in Los Angeles last year, Park has been shopping his protégé around to U.S. production companies. Rain almost managed to score a track on rapper Lil’ Kim’s latest album–but the plan fell apart after Kim was convicted of perjury and had to start serving a jail term, according to Jimmy Jeong, an executive at Rain’s management company.
Sources	Just a minor setback, says Jeong: “We’re targeting the global market. Rain’s too big for Asia.”