`Breaking News'? Oh, sure, right!
Just about every cable network plasters that all over its talk and pseudo-news shows: ``Breaking News.'' Or, ``Stay tuned for,'' in the news person's words, ``a breaking news story _ we'll have it for you in a few minutes.''
Not bloody likely.
Breaking news is news that is breaking or just broke, i.e., has just happened. Or has just been discovered (i.e. again: Bill Whatshisname tapped the Congressional til seventeen years ago, but the crime has just been discovered; that would make it legitimately breaking news).
But nowadays breaking news is often used for news that is hours (if not days) old, as a hook to get you to stay tuned. It's dishonest, it's irritating, and it's taking what used to be a useful term and making it irrelevant.
Recently, the sports channel, ESPN, has taken to using it, but I will say for ESPN that, so far, it has used the term correctly, the sports news they offer did just break. I think.
``News Alert'' is another one popping up, often simply another term for ``breaking news,'' and often just about as relevant. There's also ``Making News Right Now,'' which may or may not be (making news right now).
Of course you know why they are doing it, for ratings. A 10 p.m. talk show is generally not going to find much genuinely breaking news at that hour, unless it's happening in Central Asia.
So, because they know you are getting tired of listening to all the yak (``Breaking Talk'' would be honest), they tell you breaking news is coming up; if they don't tell you immediately what it is, it's probably because chances are you heard it, hours before.
It's on the par of crying wolf. One of these days, when really important breaking news is coming down the pike, say a tornado only two miles from your front door, you might laugh and say, ``Oh, sure,'' and flick off the TV.
And then get hit by the tornado.
Hell, for once they were telling the truth.
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David Niall Wilson says:
It's part of the greater problem
And the greater problem is that accurate news, and the history it fashions, has probably never existed and is less likely than ever now that we have thousands of views instead of just those of major news services...you have to sift through it, I guess, and figure out what you believe to be true.
The other one similar to "Breaking News" that gets me is "Up-to-the-minute" weather forecasts when - in fact - it's the same forecast they made four hours ago. If I can show my cat in its litter box in real time, they can't get a camera on that radar screen that updates regularly?
Not sure what the answers are - as long as commercial dollars fuel the news, they'll do whatever they can to draw in the viewers, even if the "breaking news" is dead and buried.
DNW
Steve Hauk says:
It is difficult to get accurate news,
partially because, to make the news their own, though it might have been lifted from a wire service or elsewhere, the channels might put a slight slant on it; if this is done several times, the orginal bit of news begins to take on a new face. You can see this happening some evenings or afternoons if you channel hop.
Thanks for the ``Up-to-the-minute'' weather forecasts, David; I missed that one but you are right.
Sue Glasco says:
Irritating teasers
So often when I am about to turn off the TV, a teaser comes on promising an important nugget of information after the commercials. The actual information could be told to the audience in the same amount of time it takes to run the teaser. Then if I hang on, that particular story might not be next at all. If the news show realy wanted to serve its audience, it would not hold back information. This is just one reason that many of us don't watch much TV.
Steve Hauk says:
Sue, I totally agree . . .
. . . wish those are points I had made. Thank you for doing so.