[telecom] Breaking News Is Broken

Breaking News Is Broken

Don't watch cable news. Shut off Twitter. You'd be better off cleaning your gutters.

By Farhad Manjoo Posted Friday, April 19, 2013

Inspired by the events of the past week, here's a handy guide for anyone looking to figure out what exactly is going on during a breaking news event. When you first hear about a big story in progress, run to your television. Make sure it's securely turned off.

Next, pull out your phone, delete your Twitter app, shut off your email, and perhaps cancel your service plan. Unplug your PC.

Now go outside and take a walk for an hour or two. Maybe find a park and sit on a bench, reading an old novel. Winter is just half a year away-have you started cleaning out your rain gutters? This might be a good time to start. Whatever you do, remember to stay hydrated. Have a sensible dinner. Get a good night's rest. In the morning, don't rush out of bed. Take in the birdsong. Brew a pot of coffee.

Finally, load up your favorite newspaper's home page. Spend about 10 minutes reading a couple of in-depth news stories about the events of the day. And that's it: You've now caught up with all your friends who spent the past day and a half going out of their minds following cable and Twitter. In fact, you're now better informed than they are, because during your self-imposed exile from the news, you didn't stumble into the many cul-de-sacs and dark alleys of misinformation that consumed their lives. You're less frazzled, better rested, and your rain gutters are clear.

Breaking news is broken. That's the clearest lesson you can draw about the media from the last week, when both old- and new-media outlets fell down on the job.

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***** Moderator's Note *****

De facto motto of most local TV stations' news managers here in the U.S.: "If it bleeds, it leads."

Bill Horne Moderator

Breaking News gives me some important information that I might not get in a timely matter elsewhere: Where Not To Be. Unless the Breaking News is mobile, say, a car chase, the information on where the area to stay out of is usually pretty accurate. Even car chases usually stay in under a dozen counties.

They got the distinction between "West Texas" and "West, Texas" right and although the fertilizer plant used to be 75 miles away, I made sure not to head in that direction. They tell me the fertilizer plant in West, Texas has chemicals used in making bombs, but the fertilizer store in Fort Worth, Texas has chemicals used in making, among other things, fire extinguishers.

They correctly identified the Boston Bomber manhunt as being limited to Boston and surrounding areas, which is far enough from Texas that anyone I find bleeding in my garage is probably a different bomber.

Although Presidential Traffic Jams (and likely Cellular Phone Traffic Overloads at the same time) are generally planned in advance, the news gave good advice on which parts of Dallas to stay out of for the rare Quintuple Presidential Traffic Jam. They allowed cell phones but they prohibited video. Uh, you guys do know that most cell phones can take video, right? Or maybe they just meant no video cameras big enough to take ISO Standard Bomb Sizes of 35mm or larger?

If I'm going to a nearby park, I'd like to know that the breaking news is NOT that they are spraying for West-Nile-infected rabid pit bulls in that park. And if I'm going to clean my gutters, I'd like to know that the breaking news is not a stolen heavily-armed police helicopter being used to shoot bystanders on or near roofs.