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Intershame On: Breaking News |
The Term is Now Meaningless
08/10/2009
The term "Breaking News" used to mean something. When you heard it, you knew something important had just happened. Unfortunately, the phrase's attention grabbing power has been watered down to point of near irrelevance. Now when I hear "Breaking News", I roll my eyes.
Somewhere along the way, a research firm probably did a study on the effectiveness of the term "Breaking News" and the results of that study prompted every news outlet in the world to start abusing the hell out of this phrase in order better capture the viewer's attention.
There seems little that isn't breaking news these days, especially on the 24-hour cable news stations, the Internet and on your local news. Not long ago I saw CNN tease a breaking news story so viewers would stick around after the commercial. Really CNN? You're going to allude to the fact that you have insanely important information, but it's not important enough to tell us immediately? Screw you. My local NBC affiliate routinely breaks into their own morning news broadcast with "Breaking News" graphic and theme music only to rehash a story from their 10pm broadcast the night before. How exactly is that news breaking?
The Internet isn't much better. A lot of the major news sites will label a story as "Breaking" and never update it; leaving these stories perpetually urgent. For example (all the following screen shots were taken on July 16, 2009):
From cnn.com...
Perhaps the final nail in the Breaking News coffin is the report from The Guardian: Journalists use Wikipedia as breaking news source. I guess "Breaking News" doesn't have to be accurate either.
Hmm.
Excuse me while I go update Wikipedia to claim that Intershame.com has just confirmed the return of Christ.
Look for breaking news reports shortly.
Somewhere along the way, a research firm probably did a study on the effectiveness of the term "Breaking News" and the results of that study prompted every news outlet in the world to start abusing the hell out of this phrase in order better capture the viewer's attention.
There seems little that isn't breaking news these days, especially on the 24-hour cable news stations, the Internet and on your local news. Not long ago I saw CNN tease a breaking news story so viewers would stick around after the commercial. Really CNN? You're going to allude to the fact that you have insanely important information, but it's not important enough to tell us immediately? Screw you. My local NBC affiliate routinely breaks into their own morning news broadcast with "Breaking News" graphic and theme music only to rehash a story from their 10pm broadcast the night before. How exactly is that news breaking?
The Internet isn't much better. A lot of the major news sites will label a story as "Breaking" and never update it; leaving these stories perpetually urgent. For example (all the following screen shots were taken on July 16, 2009):
From cnn.com...
June 8th
From foxnews.com...July 8th and Updated 2 Hours and 36 Minutes Ago
From msnbc.com...July 5th
From usatoday.com...January 15th
From huffingtonpost.com...March 24th
From reuters.com...March 31st
So what does "Breaking News" even mean anymore? It no longer means "hot off the press". It no longer denotes urgency. It doesn't even mean a story is important - maybe just more important than the other stories being reported that day.Perhaps the final nail in the Breaking News coffin is the report from The Guardian: Journalists use Wikipedia as breaking news source. I guess "Breaking News" doesn't have to be accurate either.
Hmm.
Excuse me while I go update Wikipedia to claim that Intershame.com has just confirmed the return of Christ.
Look for breaking news reports shortly.
Comments
- 1011 days agoGood idea! Fox News will probably be deserted as everyone there goes home to prepare for the Rapture...
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