The question is how do we generally define or I should say perceive a news as a breaking news? I think the consensus will go to a point where everyone will say,
“A news that contains some kind of shock, terror, sports/world-contest winning, attack, business achievement etc or anything that requires immediate attention or action out of general public is a BREAKING NEWS.”

Everybody will agree with me that a Breaking News is something which is not so vague that the entire meaning of Breaking News becomes vague. I basically mean to say that EVERY NEWS ISN’T A BREAKING NEWS. For example, the comparison between the two might go like :

  • Temperature in Michigan is crossing 95F is not a breaking news but Category 5 hurricane Rita in Florida is.
  • Cat lost in Canton is not a breaking news but Bird flu in Asia is.
  • 100 died due to hot weather in Detroit is not a breaking news but 10,000 feared dead in an earth-quake in Pakistan is.
  • Wipro net profit jumped 45% is not a breaking news but Infosys sharing 126 crore rupees with its employees is.
  • Miss Puerto Rico, Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza crowned the Miss Universe 2006 is a breaking news.
  • Attack on WTC was a breaking news. Attack on Pentagon was a breaking news. The list just goes on and on.

The real purpose of all these examples is to see if we can find out the difference between a news and a breaking news. In my opinion, any news which is just an on-going process or just an update on what’s going on is not a breaking news. Any news like terrorism attack anywhere in the world, earth-quake, hurricane, Tsunami, drastic weather change or anything related to immediate attention or action from public is a breaking news. Simpler way, the difference is same as between the To and CC recipients while sending an email. CC is just for information and To is for action. So, in other words CC is a news and To is a breaking news.
But why at all we need to discuss about this. Because these days you will find so many news on TV, news-sites or news channels that are highlighted as Breaking news but they not at all qualifies being a Breaking news. The consequence of that might happen sometime that when an immediate attention is required from the people they might not react in the fashion they should. They might feel that it is the habit of media to present everything with hype. And the real consequence may be even drastic.
So, I feel there is a need to educate our young journalists differentiate between a news and a BREAKING NEWS. They should realize that

EVERY NEWS IS NOT A BREAKING NEWS!!

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