It’s Time We Dismantle Breaking News For The Sake Of Human Decency

Breaking a news story has always set precedence in journalism as a goal to get the jump on other networks or publications. In other terms, “getting the scoop”. The objective behind breaking a news story grants an entity exclusivity of a story and would normally require replication to have “according to”, attached. Decades ago, a breaking story would often have a full 24-hour news cycle before others could catch on to make a follow-up report. This length of time frequently included fact-checking to ensure that what was being reported was factual, firstly.

Nowadays, with social media and technology enhancing how quickly information is received, breaking news is like a mad dash for every media outlet to report, first whether 100% factual or not. As we have been ushered into the consumption of gossip media and blogs, the tool of breaking a story has come at the expense of journalistic integrity (if any) and worse to the dismay of people who it impacts directly.

On Sunday, January 26, 2020, the world was shaken by the news of Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven other passengers (John Altobelli, Keri Altobelli, Alyssa Altobelli, Christina Mauser, Sarah Chester, Payton Chester, Ara Zobayan) were killed in a helicopter crash heading to a basketball game. The news, by itself, was debilitating for fans around the world and others receiving the gut-punch of such a tragedy, but it would be the media entity of TMZ that would break the story outside of the integrity…