Why are headlines in present tense and news reports in past tense

headlines are in present tense and news reports in past tense

Have you noticed the strange fact that news reports are written in past tense and news headlines in simple present tense?

There is, of course, nothing strange about it. This is how newspapers report an event, and have been reporting it ever since their evolution.

The reason most news reports are written in the past tense is because they describe events that have already occurred. Events that are scheduled to happen in the future use future tense.

Headlines, in contrast, provide an element of freshness. You don’t feel that you are reading stale news – news about an event that has occurred a day ago.

Instead, there is immediacy because the present tense is quick and current, and emphasises the action as it happens, rather than its completion.

Another way of explaining this is that the newspapers are not trying to communicate the time of the event. They only want to make a past event more current.

Examples of how this is done

In the lead below, weakened, which is the past tense form of the verb weaken, was used by the reporter to describe the fall of the rupee against dollar.

In contrast, the headline uses the present tense form of the verbs follow and hits.

Headline: Rupee follows global slide, hits all-time low against dollar

Lead: NEW DELHI: The rupee weakened 90 paise against dollar and closed at a record low of 58.77 on Tuesday.

Here’s another example of the way verbs are used in newspapers.

Headline: Delhi records season’s lowest temperature

Lead: NEW DELHI: Delhi recorded its lowest temperature of the season.

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About Sunil Saxena 327 Articles
Sunil Saxena is an award winning media professional with over four decades of experience in New Media, Social Media, Mobile Journalism, Print Journalism, Media Education and Research.

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