The trend which has been encouraged and used so frequently during television network news," breaking news" is becoming rather useless and actually it's becoming annoying. It really doesn't have anything to do with whether the news is actually breaking but more about keeping people glued to the TV set so that they can watch more commercials and please the marketing people. A good example is the caravan that is traveling from South America to the United States border. Each night when they stop to rest and sleep it becomes breaking news. Well surprise surprise that isn't breaking news!
Unfortunately when we become exposed to the same term that begins to lose its meaning we tend to ignore it. Even though it may really be breaking news we fail to respond appropriately. Some newscasts have now begun to morph the term into "developing news" in order to accomplish the same end but without the redundancy. There was a time during news broadcasts that they would actually interrupt the current program to bring real "breaking news". When that happened you actually realized that there were events that were breaking that were really significant and important to know at the time.
My best guess at the current moment is that the term will continue to be used indiscriminately and simply continue to confuse people about what to expect. At some point in time we will ignore the term completely and change channels to where more breaking news occurs. Meanwhile, I have to get back to the television because I noticed that there was just a breaking news summary and I can't possibly miss it and the commercials that will accompany it.
Unfortunately when we become exposed to the same term that begins to lose its meaning we tend to ignore it. Even though it may really be breaking news we fail to respond appropriately. Some newscasts have now begun to morph the term into "developing news" in order to accomplish the same end but without the redundancy. There was a time during news broadcasts that they would actually interrupt the current program to bring real "breaking news". When that happened you actually realized that there were events that were breaking that were really significant and important to know at the time.
My best guess at the current moment is that the term will continue to be used indiscriminately and simply continue to confuse people about what to expect. At some point in time we will ignore the term completely and change channels to where more breaking news occurs. Meanwhile, I have to get back to the television because I noticed that there was just a breaking news summary and I can't possibly miss it and the commercials that will accompany it.
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