Breaking News - Who's First?

In the era of limited media - News used to wait its turn.

Breaking News on newspapers could only happen every morning, irrespective of when the news happened. In fact, if the news was of late the previous night, then the breaking news on newspapers could only happen the day after.

But, then - there was radio - samachar or kabarein or the news bulletin on Aakashwani/ Vividh Bharti used to lead in breaking news. Of course! all would still anxiously await the next morning newspaper (or catch the evening TV news) to read and understand the details.

Soon, this breaking news moved to Television. But, still it needed to wait for the news slot at specific times for Salma Sultana to finally break the news. It was a little over a decade ago (1998) when we got our first 24 hour news channel and "live - breaking news" became a reality.

Television, has ruled the "breaking news" for over a decade and this has built many a fortunes - but, the question is how long will this dominance of TV last?

Life has bee very eventful in the recent past in terms of the amount of breaking news on television - at times though one wonders if 'breaking news' is driving television or is it the other way round.

Anyways, I want you all to think over some of the significant 'happenings' in India. Can you think of some events - Pl try.. Anna Hazare, Delhi Bomb Blast, Delhi Earth Quake,  Release of Singham, India's dismal performance at London.. can you think of more..

Now, can you just go back to these events one by one and think back where from did you first come to know of these events ?

• Newspaper - oh no! you really need to get up and smell the coffee :-)
• Television - really? maybe?
• Social Networking Sites - Of course!!

Breaking News has moved to the internet and especially to social media sites.

A news braodcaster has a big team and news agencies that feed them the news and enable them to respond to news-worthy happenings within minutes. However, imagine an army of lakhs of "Citizen Journalists" in different parts of India, inhabitants of the social networking sites, connected 24x7 to the internet - they pick up events and break the news within seconds!!.

• Not only are they fast - they are more relevant to you - as in your network they are 'your type of people' and what is news for them is most likely news for you.  
• There is no more the TV anchor with a big ugly looking mike asking people at the venue about their experience; instead - the experience is streamed live via tweets and posts bythe  multitudes who are a witness to the event.
• It is not a qualified/ sorted/ filtered perpective of the braodcaster - but a candid view of the manner in which probably you would have interpreted yourself.
• The Social Reporter is interactive and responsive - and the Social Networking space allows one to merge a number of views simultaneously from varying sources - direct or indirect.

Social Media is creating an eco-system that is up and awake 24x7 and is abuzz with breaking news - continuously.

Overall, this is 'breaking news' for the TV Channels that the days of breaking news on TV are limited and with the movement will also move the fortunes of many a channel whose focus has primarily been on 'breaking news'.

Yes, the reach of Social Netwokring Sites and Internet and Mobile is limited - so "TV will still rule for many years to come... "; This surely is one of the most short sighted statements I have made in this post :-) so pleaas ignore it and get ready for the shift very fast.

Even, within Social Media it has moved from FB to Twitter, flirted with some other networks too - the latest being Google + but in India currently Facebook is still the biggest "news breaker".