Breaking News

From TeeVeePedia, the Internet TV Encyclopedia.

Breaking News is a current event or news story so important that a television station (or occasionally even a television network) needs to interrupt its current programming in order to cover it. Examples of this are the September 11th attacks, or the resignation of a President to star in an Oliver Stone movie.

Alternately, a Breaking News story can be a news story of minimal relevance, but for which the station or network has tons of graphic footage available for broadcast.

What Qualifies As Breaking News

In most cases, a judgment call must be made on whether a news item qualifies as "Breaking News". While not all stations and networks use the same criteria, below are typical examples of what usually qualifies (and does not qualify) as "Breaking News":

A famous celebrity flips out while being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey

• QUALIFIES: Plenty of footage out there of both Oprah and the celebrity in question, plus we can replay the Oprah footage until her lawyers can come up with a "cease and desist" against us.

A major American city is wiped out by a storm

• DOES NOT QUALIFY: Viewers hate global warming stories, plus our regular weather skank meteorologist is on vacation.

Vandals set a vacant warehouse across town on fire

• QUALIFIES: We can claim that the smoke is harmful to children, plus we get a chance to use the helicopter.

The city's main employer lays off more than half its workers

• DOES NOT QUALIFY: Too depressing: besides, they're our main sponsor and we don't want to get them mad at us.

A car drives into a ditch next to a major freeway

• QUALIFIES: Traffic could be tied up for miles; at least, viewers will think so when we drop in that tape of the freeway from the last snowstorm.

A number of soldiers are killed while fighting terrorists during The Iraq War

• DOES NOT QUALIFY: Boring: besides, Rupert Murdoch told us not to interfere too much in his plans.

Special Reports

In years past, a "Breaking News" story could also be referred to by the alternate name of Special Report. This term is no longer used for news stories, as it was copyrighted by Fox News Channel for their exclusive use.