How to markup "Related News" using microdata?

Question

A news post would be like

<article itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/NewsArticle">       

  <h1 itemprop="headline">Awesome News</h1>    

  <div itemprop="articleBody">
     bla bla bla...
  </div>

</article>

What if I would like to include related news and markup them?

<ul>
  <li><a href="related_news_1.html">Related News 1</a></li>
  <li><a href="related_news_2.html">Related News 2</a></li>
  <li><a href="related_news_3.html">Related News 3</a></li>
</ul>

Answer 1

Try using element from WebPage itemtype (from: http://schema.org/WebPage, I know that You are using NewsArticle in this case, but I used Article for this example):

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Article">
    <span itemprop="name">How to Tie a Reef Knot</span>
    by <span itemprop="author">John Doe</span>
    This article has been tweeted 1203 times and contains 78 user comments.
    <meta itemprop="interactionCount" content="UserTweets:1203" />
    <meta itemprop="interactionCount" content="UserComments:78" />
</div>


<ul itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/WebPage">
    <li itemprop="relatedLink"><a href="related_news_1.html">Related News 1</a></li>
    <li itemprop="relatedLink"><a href="related_news_2.html">Related News 2</a></li>
    <li itemprop="relatedLink"><a href="related_news_3.html">Related News 3</a></li>
</ul>

Google Webmaster Tools sees it like this:

Alternatively You can do it like this:

<ul itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/WebPage">
    <li><a href="related_news_1.html" itemprop="relatedLink">Related News 1</a></li>
    <li><a href="related_news_2.html" itemprop="relatedLink">Related News 2</a></li>
    <li><a href="related_news_3.html" itemprop="relatedLink">Related News 3</a></li>
</ul>

And Google sees it like this then: