I’m watching with interest our coverage on CBC newsworld of the Air Canada incident in Calgary.
I notice that hours after the story broke, we were still displaying the Breaking News banner on our coverage — even when no new information was available and all we were doing was resetting the story at the top and bottom of the clocks.
Compare that to cbcnews.ca which has moved on from Breaking News to Developing Story — a slug that seems more accurate.
Back in the day, “breaking news” meant literally that — we had JUST broke into our regular programming to bring people urgent information. Nowadays, especially on the American cable news networks, that “breaking news” banner can last all day on the same story.
Have we lost touch with what Breaking News means? Or do you think it’s a good idea to leave that slug there on important stories?
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Is the problem that breaking news happens too fast now to keep up with everything? And the definitions are getting lost in a 24/7 newscycle?
If you are similar to me (i.e., have Newsworld on almost continuously despite seeing the news stories cycle all day) then the meaning is lost. It is not breaking the newscast, it is the newscast. But I think most people will just tune in to see a portion of a cycle. Then it is “breaking news” to the viewer, because it breaks the normal daily cycle of stories for a one off.
I’m less concerned with the “breaking news” banner but rather the content of reporting. Carolyn Dunn referred to the emergency landing in Calgary as a “crash” in a live piece on Newsworld. Way to go, Carolyn.
(Tod, just a heads up that the URL you linked to is messed up!)
It isn’t “breaking” hours after the fact. It’s “developing” (maybe).
When I worked at Newsworld, we tried to use banners to reflect the true nature of the story.
Often, we were overruled from above, by management who thought “breaking” looked much more dramatic. Sometimes they’d even say, “Newsnet is going with breaking news…”.
As if that should matter.
It’s breaking news within the 1st hour - after that “developing” or “latest development” is a better description (assuming of course that there IS something new to report).
I think “breaking news” has become more of a marketing slogan to keep us watching. (this seems clear from Anon’s comment)
And unless you watch the whole “breaking news” piece, you can’t really say for certain that there was nothing new in the “breaking news” after all.
When Ted Turner started CNN, when “news is the star” when the good old CNN Breaking News flashed on the screen (just some gold letters NOT red) you knew something important was happening. For all other stories CNN then used a “Just In” graphic.
Now everything on CNN is “Breaking News.” (and it’s the same for ever other news service) I am pretty sure that if CNN today ran a story on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln they would have a red banner reading “Breaking News: President Abraham Lincoln shot at Ford’s Theater.”
I see the hand of Frank Magid in this. The whole idea of Magid is minute by minute ratings. So every piece of news is “breaking news.”
Look how often “breaking news” banners appear on the supper hour news–even if the story broke hours ago.
You have to be live even if you don’t know anything. You have to babble on beside the satellite truck while your producers back in the office try to find out what is happening.
The trouble is that Frank Magid, Richard Stursberg and Heaton Dyer have forgotten the story of the boy who cried wolf.
I can imagine that one day there really could be breaking news “asteroid to hit earth in one hour” and everyone will ignore it because the last breaking news was the story that Britney Spears had bought a copy of a Harry Potter book.
With all the 24/7 news channels on TV nowadays, the term “breaking news” has taken on a sense of a self-referring satire to suggest the ‘news’ is broken.
When CNN or its equivalent competitors cut live to a remote to report there isn’t anything new to report since the last time they to cut to the shot…it becomes easy fodder for the satire news shows (e.g. Daily Show; Colbert).
The “Breaking News” banner graphic is seen so often on these channels its poignancy has certainly weakened in the eyes of the audience that it rarely draws a second glance.
“People become complacent…” said a man to me the other day as we stood in the arctic night at -35 C, across the street from our building, during a fire alarm. I had pointed to the people still in their apartments, not even getting their shows on, watching TV or cooking; this was the second or third alarm this week - so, not “breaking news” anymore.
Complacency
That is exactly my experience this week with 4.30 am fire alarms days in a row and half the building leaving then half of that half leaving the next night.
Also sad for the news is the "breaking news coming up after the pause" screens that are sometimes seen on CBC these days… revenue is more important than some breaking news. Perhaps it is a good indication that the story can’t be that "breaking"-worthy if it can wait for the "message from our sponsor"