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The tv anchor said "Roads are crowded during peak hours"

When changing this to reported speech does the tense change i,e does "roads are" change to "roads were"?

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    Try to give a more descriptive title. "I need help with this question" doesn't tell me what the question is about.
    – James K
    Commented Apr 14, 2023 at 7:03
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    Whether or not to 'backshift' in reported speech has been much discussed; for example, here. Since it's still true, you can use either the present tense or the past.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Apr 14, 2023 at 7:48
  • Idiomatically, we usually backshift even He said the sun rose in the east, so it's not like you shouldn't backshift with "universal, timeless" truths that are still true in a later reported speech context. But for the specific example here, I think it would really peculiar not to backshift, since that would imply the TV news anchor was informing viewers of a "general truth" (that roads always get crowded in peak hours) - that's hardly news!
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Apr 14, 2023 at 10:45
  • 'The 9 am news said that local roads are full of potholes' is certainly available if it's 11:00 (the situation still obtains), but because of the peculiarities of English grammar, 'The 9 am news said that local roads were full of potholes' can still be used in this situation. Of course, 'were' is necessary in ''I clearly remember that a 2015 showing of the 9-o'clock news said that local roads were full of potholes' (assuming it's now 2023 say).
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 14, 2023 at 11:49

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Yes, that's right.

So when I report on your original quote it becomes, "The TV anchor said that roads were crowded during peak hours."

Here's a good page on reported speech with clear examples and even exercises for practice:

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/english-grammar-reference/reported-speech

Hope this helps! :)

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Yes, generally, but it really depends on the context.

In the context of your particular example it's not absolutely necessary to switch to the past tense because in this situation, what the reporter said is something that is still true, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.

So, you could say this, and it would not be wrong

The TV anchor said that roads are crowded during peak hours

You could also switch it to the past tense if you want, and that wouldn't be wrong either.*

However, if it's something that happened a while ago and is no longer currently happening, then you should switch to the past tense.

For example:

The reporter said, "There is a hostage situation and the police are surrounding the building"

In reported speech after the event, this would become

The reporter said that there was a hostage situation and the police were surrounding the building.

*Note: I can also think of a few extreme scenarios where using the past tense might not be considered correct at all. For example: Einstein said "Energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared". To use was to convert this into reported speech would be very odd, IMHO, since Einstein was talking about a universal truth.

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