I am by no means a grammar expert, and my knowledge and use of the English language is fairly limited, being a scientist.

However, I was wondering if anyone else gets wound up by the style of headlines, particularly on the BBC news site? Just today:
‘French children are taken hostage’
’84 year old pedestrian is killed’
‘Fierce storms strike Middle East’
etc.

Is it their way of appearing so up-to-date and on-top-of-everything that they are reporting things as they happen? Surely by definition, they are reporting past events (usually).

Monday morning grump over.

French children are taken hostage’
’84 year old pedestrian is killed’

That’s passive speech not reported, if that’s your complaint. 😉

Seriously, I think that reporting can and does bend the rules a little for effect and doesn’t follow or need to follow the grammar rules, makes teaching grammar a real bitch!

It’s ‘cos they is pirates and pirates only talks in the present tense does pirates.

“STW forum user is upset by BBC grammer.”

‘French children are taken hostage’
’84 year old pedestrian is killed’

I’m surprised they included the “are” and “is” in those headlines:

“STW forum user upset by BBC grammar” sounds more like a headline to me.

Incidentally, when teaching English to advanced students this is explicitly taught, acceptable grammar for headlines is different to “normal” English.

Check out any newspaper style guide, for example:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/h

I too can also confirm that TEFL explicitly teach the present tense as grammatically correct as a style for newspaper headlines if this is of any help in reducing your ire?

I too can also confirm that TEFL explicitly teach the present tense as grammatically correct as a style for newspaper headlines

Do they? 😳

I find a worrying amount of new nowadays is in the future tense. For example “so-and-so will announce later today…”