Everyday Grammar TV: Why Are There Passive Forms in the News?

Dr. J: Hi John! You look sad today. What is on your mind?
John: I’ve been reading the news - there are so many problems in the world!
Dr. J: Yes, unfortunately, news reports often describe ongoing problems. We should explore some of the language these reports use.
John: In news reports, verbs have special importance.
Dr. J: We can break apart the verbs into two general groups: active and passive forms. John: We call a verb an active verb when the subject of the sentence performs the action.
Consider this example:
Cyber criminals hacked the network.
John: In the sentence, the subject, cyber criminals, does the action - hacking. The action is done to the object - the network.
Dr. J: In other words, our sentence has this structure: subject - verb - object.
John: Passive verbs tell us when something is done to someone or something. In other words, the subject is being acted upon.
Dr. J: We make a verb passive by introducing the auxiliary verb “be.” We also use the past participle form of the verb, like this:
The network was hacked.
Dr. J: Note that we have the verb "be" and the past participle, "hacked."
John: If we are using a passive form, we might add a phrase at the end of the sentence to give more information.
Dr. J: So, we might include the words "by cyber criminals" at the end of our sentence. Then we get this:
The network was hacked by cyber criminals.
John: Let’s practice together. We will makes sentences with these words: Tom - kick - ball
One example of an active sentence would be this: Tom kicked the ball.
One example of a passive sentence would be this: The ball was kicked.
John: And that’s Everyday Grammar TV!
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