Reporting Local News For Sodam-gu [a district]

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This phrase is a title in a newspaper. In this phrase, what is "Reporting"?
Is "Reporting" a gerund or a present participle?

It sounds as if it's part of a main verb of a sentence. One of the things that has happened to news headlines and TV news people's language over the last couple of decades is that they drop parts of verbs and sometimes the subjects, too. Here is an article from 2001 in which this tendency was written about: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/readme/2001/11/is_disappearing.html

That headline could mean any of these, plus others I'm sure you can think of:
Jason is reporting local news for Sodam-gu.
We are reporting local news for Sodam-gu.
The following people are reporting local news for Sodam-gu.

To determine whether "Reporting" in the given phrase is a gerund or a present participle, we need to understand the difference between these two forms.

A gerund is a verb that functions as a noun in a sentence. It is created by adding "-ing" to the base form of a verb. For example, in the sentence "I enjoy swimming," "swimming" is a gerund functioning as the object of the verb "enjoy."

A present participle, on the other hand, is a verb form that ends in "-ing" and is used to show continuous or ongoing actions. For example, in the sentence "She is singing a song," "singing" is the present participle of the verb "sing" and is used to show the ongoing action.

In the phrase "Reporting Local News For Sodam-gu," "Reporting" is a gerund. It functions as a noun, specifically as the subject of the phrase. It refers to the activity of gathering and presenting news about the local area. Therefore, "Reporting" is not a present participle used to describe an ongoing action; instead, it is a gerund acting as a noun.