The 24-hour news channel is just one of many news outlets to have a constant BREAKING NEWS banner scrolling across the top/bottom of the page/screen, but they're the most egregious with it, and will use it for anything. Even if it's about something that happened hours ago, or is just the latest development in a huge story that has been running for days, there is a big red banner on the bottom of the CNN screen, screaming for your attention.
Sometimes you catch them running out of even that, and they just have a 'BREAKING NEWS:' sitting there, with no other text. It's telling you that there probably is some big news out there somewhere. It'll come through, any second now. Promise. Just you wait.
The reasoning behind it is obvious, the whole world is full of flashing lights and banners, and you've got to be loud and obnoxious to grab somebody's attention, and nothing does that like the latest big news. As a society, we're fucking addicted to breaking news, and we're all terrified of missing out on something important. Even if we've only got a moment, we've got long enough to read a banner.
But there is a cost to this when you use it for every fucking thing. It devalues the whole idea of standing out, because something that is always there will inevitably fade into the background of normality. The more that it's used, the less effective it is.
Outlets like CNN have been around for decades now, so a lot of media companies have learned this rule, and save the banners for truly breaking news. Those that can still restrain themselves from losing their shit over every damn thing will notice that a lot more people are paying attention when you do flash something big and important.
Unfortunately, there are also a few newsrooms that don't give a flying fuck about little things like 'over-saturation' or 'total overkill', and are only too willing to take a giant dump on the whole idea of long-term credibility, in favour of short-term gains.
One of those worst offenders in this country atthe moment is the NZ Herald, which uses a breaking news banner for fucking anything, to the point where it's totally devalued. They'll slap that label on anything: write-offs of other newsrooms' scoops from seven hours ago, the latest developments on The Block, a house fire around the corner.
Most organisations have the ability to do an event bar, and anything can go in there, and it can be a great place to raise awareness of good longform journalism further down the page, or of some campaign by the newsroom to wipe out childhood diarrhea or some shit. But that ain't breaking news.
Breaking news is something big, something important, and flashing anything less is insanely counterproductive. The easy way to tell if something is worth a breaking news banner is if it passes the 'oh shit' test - if you tell somebody something has just happened, and their first reaction is 'oh shit', that's banner-worthy for sure. Anything else is pointless and counter-productive.
If this goddamn industry is ever going to survive much further into the 21st century, it needs to stop yelling about everything, and only shouting about the 'oh shit' moments.
- Margaret Tempest
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