NEWS ITEM TEXT

Meaning : News item is a text which informs readers about events of the day. The events areconsidered newsworthy or important
 
Purpose : To inform the readers, listeners, or viewers about event of the day which are considered news worthy or important.
Text organization :

• Newsworthy events (tells the event in a summary form)
• background events (elaborates what happened, explains what caused the incident)
• sources (comments by participants, witness, autorities, and experts involved in the event)

Language features :

• Information on the use of headlines
• the use of action verb (hit, attack,curb)
• the use of saying verbs (said, added, claimed)
• the use of passive sentences (Aceh was hit by tsunami in 2004)
• the use of adverbs inpassive sentences ( the victims were bodly injured)
  
  

Examples and structures of the text :

Town ‘ContaminatedNewsworthy events Moscow – A Russian journalist has uncovered evidence of anotherSoviet nuclear catastrophe, which killed 10 sailors and contaminated an entire town.Background Events Yelena Vazrshavskya is the first journalist to speak to people whowitnessed the explosion of a nuclear submarine at the naval base of shkotovo – 22near Vladivostock.The accident, which occurred 13 months before the Chernobyl disaster, spreadradioactive 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-classsubmarine during a refit had been a ‘thermal’ and not a nuclear explosion. And thoseinvolved in the clean up operation to remove more than 600 tones of contaminatedmaterial were sworn to secrecy.Sumber InformasiSources A board of investigators was later to describe it as the worst accident in thehistory of the Soviet Navy.