time is of the essence

A bemused Paul Farhi at the WaPo notes the plethora of flashing labels that the cable channels slap onto our monitors:

President Bush’s latest news conference? CNN labels it a “Developing Story.” A car bombing in Baghdad? The banner on MSNBC reads, “Breaking News.” A blown transformer in New York City? Fox News Channel is on it, with a graphic that announces, “Very Latest.”

Sometimes a story is a “News Alert.” Sometimes it’s a “Bulletin.” And sometimes the banner reads, “New Developments” (although if there are new developments in a “Developing Story,” shouldn’t it really say “Developing Developing Story”?).

The dizzying world of news labels raises many questions. Is it possible for a “Developing Story” to become “Developed,” like a Polaroid picture or a post-adolescent woman? Does “Breaking News” ever become “Broken” (and if so, can it be “fixed”)?

Why the urgency? Farhi wonders.

Isn’t all news just, you know, new information?

Well, yeah. But we the audience are busy people and we get bored easily unless a lot of visuals get thrown at us, in which case we stop and stare at the screen. And of course it’s not as if the cable folks are actually interested in telling us the news. They’re interested in keeping their advertisers happy … or else. So:

Jeremy Gaines, a spokesman for MSNBC, replies that the labels “telegraph the story in a visual way” for channel-surfing viewers.

It’s all about the telegraphing. More on this another time.