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Breaking news, also called late-breaking news, a special report, special coverage, or a news flash, is a current issue that warrants the interruption of a scheduled broadcast in order to report its details. News broadcasters also use the term for continuing coverage of events of broad interest to viewers, attracting accusations of
sensationalism In journalism and mass media, sensationalism is a type of editorial tactic. Events and topics in news stories are selected and worded to excite the greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emoti ...
.


Formats

Breaking news has been common to U.S.
mass media Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises b ...
since the 1930s, when the mass adoption of radio allowed the public to learn about new events without the need to print an extra edition of a
newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...
.


Television

When a news event warrants an interruption of current non-news programming (or, in some cases, regularly scheduled newscasts), the broadcaster will usually alert all of its affiliates, telling them to stand by for the interruption. The network's feed will then switch to a countdown sequence, to allow any affiliated stations to switch to the network feed. If a national network newscast is in progress when the breaking news event occurs, the newscast will pause temporarily to allow other network affiliates to join the feed. There is then an opening graphic, with a distinctive music cue. The open is followed by the introduction of a
news anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...
, who welcomes the viewer to the broadcast and introduces the story at hand.
Lower thirds In the television industry, a lower third is a graphic overlay placed in the title-safe lower area of the screen, though not necessarily the entire lower third of it, as the name suggests. In its simplest form, a lower third can just be text ...
and other graphics may also be altered to convey a sense of urgency. In recent years, major networks such as NBC have begun using "Special Report" tickers for select breaking stories during regularly scheduled programming, lessening the need for cut-ins. Depending on the story being followed, the report may last only a few minutes, or continue for multiple hours or days. If coverage continues for an extended amount of time, the network may integrate analysis about the story through analysts in-studio, via phone,
satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...
,
broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...
(B-GAN) or through other means of communication. Depending on the severity of the event, regular
commercial advertising A television advertisement (also called a commercial, spot, break, advert, or ad) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization. It conveys a message promoting, and aiming to market, a product, service or idea. ...
may be suspended entirely for sustained coverage. Network affiliates will be required to insert their
station identification Station identification (ident, network ID, channel ID or bumper (broadcasting), bumper) is the practice of radio and television stations and broadcast network, networks identifying themselves on-air, typically by means of a call sign or brand na ...
in at the top of the hour overlaid during the report rather than through the usual means of a station imaging promo or program reminder. Breaking news reports are often incomplete because reporters have only a basic awareness of the story. For example, major U.S. broadcast networks analyzed the search warrant affidavit related to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago in real time, while on the air, breaking into programming immediately after the document was released. The
Radio Television Digital News Association The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA, pronounced the same as " rotunda"), formerly the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), is a United States-based membership organization of radio, television, and online news dir ...
(RTDNA) maintains a list of guidelines for broadcasters reporting breaking news.


Talking heads

Breaking news reports often face the same problems in reporting: no footage of the incident, no reporters at the scene, and little available information. To be able to report on current affairs despite this, many networks either employ full-time (typical in the United States) or contact freelance (typical in the United Kingdom) experts and pundits to be "talking heads". These people have either experience or expertise and are considered reliable by the general public. They have been common on television, and can also appear on radio. In the United States, the competitive nature of commercial networks has allowed for pundits to develop their skills and dedicate themselves to respond to breaking news with analysis in a variety of fields, most often political. These talking heads can be paid millions to work exclusively for a network. In the United Kingdom, TV talking heads are sometimes considered filler who talk around the subject. They are not full-time employees of networks and are not always paid – when they are it is a flat fee for the slot – and will be urgently called in to discuss the relevant field (in which they will typically work full-time). Pundits in the UK have said that they do it because they deem it important to get expert coverage of breaking news, and because it can put their field (and themselves) in the spotlight. Research has suggested that talking heads in the United States are more likely to be partial than talking heads in the United Kingdom. In 2015, the ''
Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
'' suggested that with modern technological developments broadening news coverage, and with networks opting to show "livelier" non-expert comments from social media more, the need for talking heads may be shrinking.


Radio

National news that is broadcast over a
radio network There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many (simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass media, mass-media entertainment, and the two-way radio (Duplex (teleco ...
requires constant monitoring by station employees to allow the network coverage to air, although many stations will take a signal sent by the network and break into programming immediately. In the United Kingdom,
Independent Radio News Independent Radio News provides a service of news bulletins, audio and copy to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom and beyond. The managing director, Tim Molloy, succeeded long-term MD John Perkins in November 2009. Perkins had been ...
provides special alarm systems specifically to notify its affiliates of deaths in the
British royal family The British royal family comprises Charles III and other members of his family. There is no strict legal or formal definition of who is or is not a member, although the Royal Household has issued different lists outlining who is considere ...
, mandating their participation in heavily-coordinated mourning protocols that are practiced by the government and broadcasters.


Mobile phones

Smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...
users who have
mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...
s for news may choose to receive
push notifications Push technology, also known as server Push, refers to a communication method, where the communication is initiated by a server rather than a client. This approach is different from the "pull" method where the communication is initiated by a client ...
about news updates. In 2016, the
Pew Charitable Trusts The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 1948. Pew's stated mission is to serve the public interest by "improving public policy, informing the public, and invigorating civic life". ...
conducted a survey and found that 55% of U.S. smartphone users received news alerts, although only 13% of users reported receiving them "often". ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' split its push notifications into "Breaking News" and less urgent "Top Stories" in 2016, after modifying its email lists in the same way.
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
increased its push notifications significantly in 2018, notifying app users about both breaking news and programming information, to mixed reactions from its audience. The ''
Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its original purpose was "to assess the performance ...
'' found in a 2017 study that 43% of news apps' push notifications were not related to breaking news.


Usage

News bulletins have been a fixture of radio broadcasting since the 1920s. Examples of early news bulletins in the
Golden Age of Radio The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the earl ...
include fictionalized versions in the 1938 radio drama ''
The War of the Worlds ''The War of the Worlds'' is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was written between 1895 and 1897, and serialised in '' Pearson's Magazine'' in the UK and ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine in the US in 1897. The full novel was ...
'' and coverage of the
attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...
, which was also the first television news bulletin, reported on stations in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...
and
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
.
KTLA KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship station of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is ...
in Los Angeles is credited with being the first television station to provide extended coverage of a breaking news event: for 27½ hours from April 8 to 9, 1949, the station carried live coverage of an attempt to rescue three-year-old
Kathy Fiscus Kathryn Anne Fiscus (August 21, 1945 – April 8, 1949) was a three-year-old girl who died after falling into a well in San Marino, California. The attempted rescue, broadcast live on KTLA, was a landmark event in American television history. Res ...
, who had fallen down an abandoned well in
San Marino, California San Marino is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It was incorporated on April 25, 1913. At the 2020 United States census the population was 12,513, a decline from the 2010 United States census. History Origin of name Th ...
, where she ultimately perished due to
asphyxia Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects all the tissues and organs, some more rapidly than others. There are m ...
from a lack of oxygen. Before 24-hour news networks existed, programming interruptions were restricted to extremely urgent news, such as for the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Such breaks are now common at 24-hour
news channel News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or telev ...
s, which have an anchor available for live interruption at any time. Another type of breaking news is for
severe weather Severe weather is any dangerous meteorological phenomenon with the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption, or loss of human life. These vary depending on the latitude, altitude, topography, and atmospheric conditions. High ...
events. In
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
until the 1990s, television and radio stations normally only provided long-form weather coverage during immediate, ongoing threats, such as a
tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with the surface of Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the ...
or a landfalling
hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its ...
. Cut-ins and alert crawls during regular programming were used otherwise, even when higher-end alerts such as
tornado warning A tornado warning ( SAME code: TOR) is a public warning that is issued by weather forecasting agencies to an area in the direct path of a tornado, or a severe thunderstorm capable of producing one, and advises individuals in that area to take c ...
s were issued. Advancements in newsgathering and weather technology (including the deployment of
helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...
s to provide aerial coverage and radar systems that can detect specific storm attributes), coupled with a few highly life-threatening events during the 1990s (such as
Hurricane Andrew Hurricane Andrew was a compact, but very powerful and devastating tropical cyclone that struck the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana in August 1992. It was the most destructive hurricane to ever hit Florida in terms of structures dama ...
and the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak) and the resulting heightened urgency to advise those in the storm's path to take safety precautions in advance made extended (or "wall-to-wall") weather coverage once a high-end alert is issued more common in storm-prone areas, with cut-ins only being used in weather events of lesser severity. Not all viewers agree that stories labeled as "breaking news" are urgent or important.
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
chairman and CEO
Chris Licht Christopher Andrew Licht (born October 22, 1971) is an American television newsman and producer. He is best known as the showrunner and executive producer of ''The Late Show With Stephen Colbert'', as well as CBS's executive vice president of sp ...
wrote upon assuming the position in 2022, "It has become such a fixture on every channel and network that its impact has become lost on the audience." To address this, he began limiting CNN's use of the term only to stories of utmost importance.


Criticism

In early coverage of a breaking story, details are often inaccurate or incomplete. For example, during the
Sago Mine disaster The Sago Mine disaster was a coal mine explosion on January 2, 2006, at the Sago Mine in Sago, West Virginia, United States, near the Upshur County seat of Buckhannon. The blast and collapse trapped 13 miners for nearly two days; only one s ...
, there were initial reports that 12 of the 13 miners were found alive, but news organizations later learned that only one actually survived. Some commentators question as to whether the use of the term "breaking news" is excessive, citing occasions when the term is used even though scheduled programming is not interrupted. For example, an evening broadcast may begin with "Breaking news as we come on the air" to cover a story that has been covered by other broadcasts repetitively within the last 24 hours. In June 2013,
Fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...
affiliate
WDRB WDRB (channel 41) is a television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Block Communications alongside Salem, Indiana–licensed dual CW/MyNetworkTV affiliate WBKI (channel 58). The ...
in
Louisville Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...
,
Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...
gained notice in the television industry for a
promo PROMO (Promoting Missouri) is a Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territ ...
that criticized the broad and constant use of the "breaking news" term, explaining that it has been overused as a "marketing ploy" by other news-producing stations, who tend to apply the term to stories that are low in urgency or relevance. To coincide with the promo, on its website, WDRB posted "Contracts" with its viewers and advertisers, with the former list promising to use "breaking news" judiciously (applying it to stories that are "both 'breaking' and 'news). In June 2022, CNN chief
Chris Licht Christopher Andrew Licht (born October 22, 1971) is an American television newsman and producer. He is best known as the showrunner and executive producer of ''The Late Show With Stephen Colbert'', as well as CBS's executive vice president of sp ...
oversaw the addition of guidance regarding the use of "breaking news" to the network's style guide. Licht, who took over leadership after the recent
merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...
of its parent company
WarnerMedia Warner Media, LLC (Trade name, doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational corporation, multinational mass media and show business, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 ...
with
Discovery Inc. Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1982, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chan ...
, argued in an internal memo that overuse of the term by news channels had made it lose its impact among viewers, and that "We are truth-tellers, focused on informing, not alarming our viewers."


References

{{reflist Local television news programming in the United States News Types of journalism ja:報道特別番組