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We are an entertainment based society in SOME ways. We like to keep up on things which interest us. To me breaking news might be chess news :) but I am in the minority on that front.
News is a fickle thing. We might bitch about all the Mel Gibson news, but then come here to DU and we see a lot more of it then one might think we would. Polls, commentary, history, etc and so on.
I think the thing we need to keep in mind is that some news we can all relate to because of it's commonality.
We have all heard of mel gibson. In the Ramsey case while we have not all heard of them it made news because people tend to think of well off folks living in nice areas don't have the same problems us ghetto folks do. So when crap happens to them we hear about it, then tell em off because it seems the news only covers the tragedies of the rich and not the poor (ie, we expect the poor to have bad things happen to them, not the well off). There is a sense, I think perhaps, of justice. Like when we hear about a lotto winner who buys a sweet car and gets in a wreck and is messed up. My best friend died in a car accident and it was barely a blurb in local news. Had he been famous it would be national news (or had he just pulled off the lot with a ferrari after winning the lotto).
It is breaking news when it is happening or shortly thereafter. It is news on a national scale if they think a majority can relate.
Just my 2 cents.
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