How breaking news broke me

Everyone, and everything has a soul. You might argue, but I believe, even News has a soul. It's a curious word really: News. The word comes from the four directions, North, East, West and South. Telling you everything you need to know from every direction.
So, the soul for news comes from the idea that it provides you all the information you need to know, and the details you seek, satisfying your craving for keeping up to date. Apply this to any sphere, politics, military, sports, entertainment, weather, it's all the same.
In today's internet age, details are easily found, immediacy is afforded by television and the newspaper takes care of my breed, who wants to know something or the other about everything. And television news when I was growing up was a family event, an evening bulletin that provided us with every bit of information, relevant or otherwise, that we truly believed mattered. As I grew up, I got my daily dose from the papers and then fought with my father for control of the television remote so I could watch the X-Files instead of the evening news.
At around that point came around an institution called The World This Week. All remote wars ceased on Friday nights in our household. And I'm certain it's impact can be felt in any household that speaks English, and had a television set in the late 80s and early 90s.
That was the purest soul of all. Once a week, we were brought world events, packaged, written and presented so brilliantly, it was like having a front seat at a Laurence Olivier performance.
As television news began it's evolution, we had some experiments that worked, and some that didn't, but you always felt that the endeavour never lacked from sincerity and purpose.
Fast forward to a few years later, and as a Masters in Broadcast Journalism, I believed that I could truly deliver to people, stuff that's important to them. Things that truly matter. News that truly matters.
What I hadn't understood is that 24 hour news has a very different form of existence. It's more immediate, you have a 24 hour cycle to run, so a lot of news that truly doesn't matter pan-nationally is given a national platform, and often trivial matters get blown out of proportion. But just like everyone who's sworn never to offer a bribe, it's a situation you come to terms with, eventually accepting it as that of your lot. And I did.
But then came along the dreaded words: Breaking News. Breaking News across the world used to mean news that was either 'broken' by a newspaper or a channel. It was news that had so much impact that it was truly new, unexpected, and journalistically original. So, in my realm, the first reporter to have broken the match fixing scandal in cricket is truly one who has a legitimate claim to 'breaking news'.
Today, it's a worthless phrase that has been cheapened beyond belief. It's used when Sarabjit Singh's hanging is delayed (justifiably perhaps), but it's also used when Sourav Ganguly is fined 10 per cent of his match fee (within a few minutes of the Sarabjit news being 'flashed'). It's used when Mumbai locals run late, it's used when a boy in Bangalore drowns. It's even used when the Indian cricket team wins a Test series, on the 5th day of a drawn Test when they were leading the series 1-0 even before the final Test began. The point is that the phrase has no meaning anymore.
And it's just not bad enough, that one channel is a perpetrator of that crime, everyone else wants to follow suit. They end up playing catch up, purely because the original culprit is cheapening the phrase further and further. So watch out the next time you spill a cup of coffee, you just might 'flashed'.
For me, romance is everything. If you don't truly enjoy what you do, no matter who tells you what, it isn't worth doing. Happiness won't come for news easily. It's soul is too corrupted. And it's something the viewer will catch on to, sooner or later. Now, that I'm a part of the 'audience' I don't see the point of having breaking news every few seconds, having information (unconfirmed, speculative or otherwise) shoved down your throat like it truly matters. The only thing that matters is that I get the correct information, at such a time that I understand it (along with the news medium giving it). It's importance is put in to a frame of context, and it's in a form that I can use, either to quote, apply to my daily life or simply to mull on. That for me, is the soul of 24 hour news.
Yet, here we roam, soul-less, aim-less and unable to comprehend.