Breaking news. Really?

I am getting old. Maybe I am getting cranky. I heard a local news story this week described as “Breaking News!”  It wasn’t. Yeah it was local news, but breaking? Nahhhh. I remember when the term breaking news was something HUGE.  Everywhere you go now, everyone is talking breaking news.

We are only a few days away from November 22. That’s the anniversary of President Kennedy being shot to death. THAT was breaking news.

Last month we had the anniversary of the Yom Kippur war. I remember being in J-school and seeing the BULLETIN come across the wire. October 6, 1973. Back then the wire machine was a big Telex contraption. Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Holy crap. Five bells! It was the first time I had seen a bulletin coming in. OMG that was a word that gave goosebumps to news junkies. You knew some heavy shite was happening. Turns out that Israeli was inches away from being defeated by the Arab states. Israeli needed more jets and bombs to fight Egypt and Syria. They appealed to the U.S. for help. Nixon and Kissinger refused to help. Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir was tougher than both of them. She positioned an Israeli air force pilot into the cockpit of a jet fighter that sat on a runway ready to roll at a second’s notice. It was loaded with a nuclear bomb. Meir told the U.S. that if Israel came any closer to being defeated, she would destroy Egypt. The U.S. sent new jets.

THAT was breaking news.