To start off, I personally like
Anderson Cooper. I find him to be an intelligent man that I trust to
be fair and balanced in his reporting. That said, this Buzzfeed
post
opened my eyes to a large problem plaguing broadcast journalism.
No longer does the word “breaking news” have any meaning as it is
overused on news stations to attract the attention of the viewer.
“Breaking News” has been
sensationalized to increase drama and excitement on information that
might have been known hours beforehand. The pressure competing
networks are under intensifies the need to be the first one to get
the “scoop”. However, as Buzzfeed
demonstrates, CNN was not the first to get the scoop on many occasions, yet Anderson Cooper made it seem as if CNN had an
exclusive report. In a war of ratings the network that is known to
be the first to report news stories wins the trust and viewership of
Americans across the country. It seems to me using the word
“breaking” is redundant if someone has already reported on it.
How can news be breaking if it is already old? Yet, news networks
abuse the word hoping to stir up excitement in their news program.
Now the phrase has been watered down to the point that any news, even
celebrity gossip, is worthy to be titled breaking news .
I agree with what you are saying. I also feel like News has become more of an entertainment channel other than a way to inform the people. I suppose the News stations have realized that the public may lose interest if there is no element of excitement in their broadcasts. I guess this goes back to why most of their stories are "breaking new." I personally know that if I'm watching CNN or MSNBC and the words "breaking news" came on the screen, I would feel excited because I would assume I was getting the story first and live. Maybe this is why so many new stations are doing this. However, I feel like it might be unethical if the story is already old.
ReplyDelete-Amy Bartolotta