,,Details of news" - the Past Simple vs the Present Perfect

Question

Recently many things have happened in the World. The ability of talking about news is rather important but it might be a bit confusing. I'm going to give you an example so that you can help me defeat my doubts.

A block of flats has been burned down. A 50 years old man caused the ignition. Many people died or have died. The arsonist has been detained or was detained by the Police.

I know that in AmE these tenses are interchangeable because I've heard dialogues in AmE many times. But yesterday when I was watching BBC on TV I got confused.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

The simple past is often used for events that are complete in the past. The present perfect is often used if the event just happened or the story is still in progress and the past perfect is used for events that happened earlier.

A block of flats burned down two days ago. Many people died in the fire. They were sleeping and the alarm system malfunctioned, so there was no alarm.  Investigators determined that the fire had been deliberately set. A 50-year-old man who had been accused of arson in several other cases was seen in the neighborhood the day of the fire.  The alleged arsonist has been detained  by the police.

GPY · Answer

There are some other issues with other parts of the text, but I will focus only on the tenses.

You would continue using "Many people have died" for as long as the deaths seem recent and connected to the present situation. This might be for a few days. Then, as the deaths recede into the past, you would start using "Many people died".

Similarly with the other sentence. "The arsonist has been detained" implies that the detention was fairly recent and still in effect, i.e. the person is still in custody. As time passes, and the event seems less current, or the person is released, you would switch to "was detained".

(Cross-posted.)

Mister Micawber · Answer

You have problems worse than present perfect vs simple past.

Recently many things have happened in the world. The ability to talk about the news is rather important, but it might be a bit confusing. I'm going to give you an example so that you can help me resolve my doubts.

A block of flats has been burned down. A 50-year-old man caused the fire. Many people died/ have died. The arsonist has been detained / was detained by the police.

I know that in AmE these tenses are interchangeable because I've heard dialogues in AmE many times. But yesterday when I was watching BBC on TV, I became confused.

(cross-cross posted!)

Anonymous · Answer

With regards to your question, often in American English native speakers will use the past simple and the resent perfect interchangeably, but in general, the perfect tenses show that an event happened before another event and led up to that event. For instance, an event in the present perfect happened in the past and led up to the present moment. An event in the past perfect happened in the past, and continued until it led up to another point in the past. With regards to everyone tearing your post to shreds, I think it's not right to be a grammar **** about everything and nitpick at the minor details. The main objective for your post was to figure out whether to use the past simple or the present perfect under a certain context, so I think people should stick to the question at hand and not nitpick all the little things that aren't relevant to the topic at hand.

,,Details of news" - the Past Simple vs the Present Perfect

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