If you take away ‘Breaking News’ what do you have left?
Two news events occurred in the last 12 hours in Australia that became common knowledge on Twitter long before they made it into the newspapers online. The first was the Earthquake in Melbourne. The second was the Sydney dust storm.
Photo borrowed from this rather excellent gallery on Flickr by Marching Ants
Had these events occurred a few years ago, we would have tuned into radio, TV or newspaper websites for the latest news. The days where ‘Breaking News’ stories are delivered by a news outlet are pretty much over. We may turn to the establishment for the full report and detailed analysis of the event a few hours later but the ‘Breaking’ part of breaking news has moved on. Let’s face it there’s not much more to some of these stories that can’t be said in a Tweet. ‘Michael Jackson dies of a Heart Attack’, ‘Dust storm hits Sydney’, ‘Melbourne has category 3 earthquake, some buildings damaged’.
The concept of waiting to tomorrow to read about the dust storm printed on a piece of paper seems ludicrous. Never has the term ‘old news’ seemed so fitting.
This poses a real challenge for Newspapers and all news media. If you take away ‘Breaking News’ what do you have left? And is anyone going to pay for it?
One Response to “If you take away ‘Breaking News’ what do you have left?”
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Completely agree. I find myself spending the first part of the day looking at the News Review or Focus sections of the paper for expanded detailed reports on stories briefly summarised online. I still like the old double page indepth analysis on the weekend though, especially after spending the week in front of a computer.