When an urgent event occurs, media outlets must move quickly to report the story. But the race to be first often leads to errors. Breaking news can be anything from a car crash to a natural disaster to a terrorist attack. The common thread is that the events are unexpected and unplanned, so reporters must take extra care to get it right.
Generally, a breaking story begins when a source contacts a network and says that something is happening. The network will then interrupt any regular non-news programming, such as a sports game or a talk show, with an alert. It will usually display a special graphic and a distinctive music cue to let viewers know that the program is being interrupted for a breaking news story.
Sometimes a breaking news story will involve eyewitness accounts, which are often dramatic and compelling. But as a rule, eyewitness reports should be checked with the appropriate authorities before reporting them. In the case of Gabrielle Giffords, for example, an eyewitness described seeing the congresswoman “slumped in the corner with an apparent gunshot wound to the head” and blood running down her face. NPR erroneously reported that she had died, because it based its report on this account.
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