Breaking News. These words have been used to announce such important events as the Kennedy assassination, the Los Angeles Riots, last year’s Tsunami…truly, news so important that breaking into scheduled programming–or, indeed, an actual newscast (there’s an irony)–is warranted.

So imagine my surprise when, at 10:30am, I flipped on the TV to take my ten minute break, thinking “Hey, maybe I can get a bit of this ‘network news’ everyone has been talking about”, and was exposed to FIFTEEN minutes (yes, I sat around, baffled, for an extra five minutes) of the following BREAKING NEWS report:

A Nike corporate plane was having trouble with one of its landing gear and might have to make an emergency landing.

Seriously. That was it. ALL of it. Shocking. I sat, waiting for them to move on to another story, or perhaps return to scheduled programming or cut to a commercial. But nope, that fifteen minutes (and Cheney knows how many before and/or after) were dedicated to local reporters spouting off technical data they knew nothing about, conjecture about the mental state of the pilots/crew (seven total–SEVEN–on board), and utterly dumbfounded guesswork as to what the pilot would choose–would he land the plane in Hillsboro? At PDX? Is he doing a practice run or attempting to land now? Oh, the edge-of-your seat suspense.

This isn’t breaking news, people, this is a short section on page ten of the metro section. Christ, there is REAL breaking news today (much of which I will report on in a minute or two), and this is what they spent the morning on? So to KGW8 (the NBC affiliate) and to FOX12, I say to you buy a dictionary, before you start talking about the “Avian Bird Flu”.

Kudos to the CBS affiliate for not interrupting their broadcast of The Price Is Right.

And awww, how utterly fitting: Fox News is the only RSS feed to feature the story. Good to know FOX’s national branch is as principled as its regional affiliates, huh?

EDITOR UPDATE: Apparently the plane safely landed. Wonkette takes a perfect view of how FOX News is handling the tragedy of the lack of a tragedy. -t


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