grammar - "industry" or "industrial"

From VOA Special English:

Growers get industry news along with advice and information from experts.

Why is it "industry" instead of "industrial"? I know that "news" is a noun, and generally in front of a noun is an adjective. But "industry" is just a noun, too. So I think "industrial" may be more agreeable. Can someone tell me why does it use "industry"? Thanks!

Answer

In English, nouns combine together to form noun phrases. The syntax of a noun phrase is a lopsided tree, headed by the rightmost noun, for instance:

law school admission test

This string of nouns denotes a thing which is a kind of test. More specifically, an admission test: a test to determine suitability for admission. More specifically, a school entrance test: a test to determine suitability of admission to a school. And so on.

Almost all nouns can combine together to make noun phrases, even proper nouns:

Did you attend the Paris convention? [Did you attend that convention which was in Paris?]

That's a real Jennifer thing to do! [Jennifer's action is typical of Jennifer's usual behavior.]

The string of nouns only has to make sense, and sense can be established by context. For instance there is no such thing as a "table door", but if you somehow introduce something like that to your audience, they will accept it; in any case, it is not ungrammatical.

It is also important to note that certain combinations of words have entrenched meanings, and it makes a difference whether you use the adjectival form or the noun.

In this particular case, "industry news" is in fact much more correct than "industrial news". The reason is that it is news about the industry: writing produced by industry pundits (who, also, are not "industrial pundits").

Something "industrial" is of the industry: something used or produced by the industry.

A machine, tool, or part can be industrial:

Our company produces {industrial | industry*} robots.

{Industrial | Industry*} versions of microchips can withstand wider temperature ranges than consumer versions.

My brother-in-law studied {industrial | industry*} engineering, became an {industrial | industry} expert, but ended up working as an {industry | industrial*} journalist.

A truck full of {industry | industrial*} materials overturned on Highway 37, southbound just before exit 53.

Although both "industrial expert" and "industry expert" are used, but they are not necessarily the same thing. My intuition is that an industrial expert might be someone who has knowledge about the processes and materials within some industry (an expert in matters industrial), whereas an industry expert is someone with a broader outlook on an industry as a whole, including perhaps the business side of things (expert in matters concerning the industry).