When news breaks, we'll be there to fix it!

It may not be like this where you live, but I've noticed lately that the folks doing the local TV news do not understand the definition of breaking news.

Back in Journalism School, we talked about breaking news as something that just happened or was happening at the time.

For some reason, in the effort to sound up to the minute - the local news anchor comes on to tell the viewing audience they have breaking news then proceeds to tell us about something that happened hours ago.

It's not breaking if it happened more than 30 minutes ago.  It's also not breaking news if it was something scheduled, like a press conference or announcement.  A fire, storm, disaster, crime, crash... all those things could be breaking news if it's significant and just happened.  It's not breaking simply because it happened since you were last on the air.

I get wanting to sound current - but calling something breaking news when its not just diminishes your credibility.

Come on guys, you can do better than this and your audience deserves it don't cheapen the news.