From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!ihps3!houxi!npois!npoiv!alice!sjb
Newsgroups: net.news.b
Title: Re: newsgroups listing command
Article-I.D.: alice.925
Posted: Fri Sep 17 19:53:09 1982
Received: Wed Sep 22 04:56:08 1982
References: ihuxs.168

Why be that complicated?  Just tell them to:
cat /usr/lib/news/active