Isn’t it such a commonplace terminology these days? Once upon a time, perhaps the term never even existed in the age old journalistic fundamentals, but today, it’s like an Encyclopedia!

What is this Breaking News all about? Well, to put it straight across, they’re hungry; always on a look out; always raring to go, with their eyes popping out for some sensational piece which would create headlines and a stir of sorts across the viewers. (When we say “they“, it doesn’t merely represent the news channel guys, it also implies their zooming cameras, with the paparazzi running helter- skelter to be there on the spot first).

So what happens in this process is that even a minuscule piece or some by and by news becomes suddenly the most sought after. The crux of the matter is that no matter what, they want to be there first, to capture the event LIVE and report on it as and when it’s happening real time.

Well, but then doesn’t that exactly indicate hard core journalism? Isn’t that exactly what it stands for? News, News and more News.

Needless to say then, that when I as a viewer switch on the button of my remote, I’m overdosed with the same piece of news on every single channel. Even if I try to fumble with those innumerable channels, it’s in vain; because all that I’m being supplied with is the same record everywhere (unless of course I choose to lay my hands on some latest blockbuster movie running on some channel; but that becomes a wrong choice, as I eventually realize that the breaks/ intervals in between the movie are hopeless and would unduly lengthen the duration of the movie. So I give up!)

A lot has been talked about media hype these days. If we scratch our brains a furthermore, it’ll dawn upon us that even this terminology wasn’t apparent till a few decades back. So from where has this term mushroomed? Has it emerged out of nowhere? Absolutely not.  It actually has a logical sequence to it. If there’s news, there’s going to be reporting. If there’s reporting, there’s going to be a bit of exaggeration factor attached to it. So from this very exaggeration springs up hype.

Hence, whether you like it or not, media to a certain extent is definitely responsible for bloating and far stretching certain occurrences, with their expert panelists going on and on analyzing, arguing, counter arguing the same issues at hand endlessly, till a time comes when you actually begin to ask yourself, “hasn’t there been any other happening that might have occurred in the remotest corners of this vast country, or the larger world, and that which could have also made news and be reported about?” And then like a worn out viewer, one generally tends to do either do two things—keep on passively listening to the same analysis going on amongst the conversationalists of the news channel, or just switch off that TV to assimilate the news and go on with your life. Wonder whether going on and on with the same arguments and discussions does to anybody any good? It’s like mincing things over and over. So in a way, being over informed does to us no good.

And regarding the news wallas, well, isn’t it a part of their job to report fair and full? So let them do their job. After all, they’ve all climbed up the bandwagon of providing the latest, most recent, “as it happens” Breaking News, and they’ve all made a vow to help these Breaking News reach our LCDs and Laptops and Life. So be it.

They’re doing their fair share. Let us either sit through the heated debates they telecast, or let us just switch ourselves off from all of it, with a click of a button. The choice is ours. (And no, we won’t be labeled “apathetic” if we do choose the latter. We still remain the well informed lot).  It’s just that on one hand, we are  totally updated about things around, and on the other, somewhere, we’re still cut off because we chose to remain so.

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