That's how you know KRove's in the HOUSE

Living, as I do, far from the be-exclamation-point-ed and be-multiple-ticker-taped world of cable news, when I encounter it I am immediately tricked into thinking that Something Big Has Happened when in fact regular old news has happened. Either cable news or I (it's hard to tell) has/have lost all sense of the proportionality of things. I agree that the World Bank is important and often newsworthy, but unless the World Bank done blowed up, it's not worthy of a blinking 72-pt font headline.

Our local news goes the entire broadcast these days with the words "BREAKING NEWS" at the bottom of the screen, next to the network logo and ticker tape reporting on a car accident, scene at the courthouse/7-11/Key Bank, and that guy who fell in the river last week. Yes, I suppose that the apartment fire that the windswept reporter is standing in front of is technically breaking news, but as you are a news show, which implies that the things you are standing in front of, interviewing neighbors about, and collecting information on will be generally news-related, this seems a bit redundant.

I can't pinpoint exactly when the world of news went all crazy, but it seems like fifteen years ago, breaking news was news that warranted interrupting Our Regularly Scheduled Programs, and even then I was relatively certain that whatever had happened could've waited until Brenda & Kelly had finished scratching each others' eyes out.