Is "Breaking News" Broken? (from IMDB)
 

The evolution of news has turned this highly competitive market into a parody of itself. I don't think the Simpsons could have parodied this any better. The crawls described below are absolutely ridiculous.

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From IMDB:

"Breaking News" Broken?
The story of the arrest of a suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey case pushed aside seemingly more important matters including Iran's test of long-range missiles and a ruling by a federal judge in Michigan that overturned the Bush administration's domestic-surveillance operations. MSNBC, which scored a beat on its rivals by being the first to report on last Wednesday's arrest in Bangkok of John Mark Karr, continued to devote considerable time to the story as late as Sunday, as Karr was being flown back to the U.S. in the business class section of Thai Airlines. At 10:01 a.m. MSNBC bannered: "BREAKING NEWS; RAMSEY SUSPECT ALLOWED TO DRINK CHAMPAGNE WHEN HE BOARDED PLANE." Five minutes later it changed its "Breaking News" banner to "RAMSEY SUSPECT'S ONBOARD DINNER INCLUDED PATÉ AND FRIED KING PRAWNS." At 12:31, another "Breaking News" banner read, "RAMSEY SUSPECT HAS HAD CHAMPAGNE, A BEER AND GLASS OF WINE ON PLANE."
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Is there a target audience for this? It certainly can't be those interested in the News. Any thoughts?

It's basically tabloid journalism. This case and the OJ case is what most tabloids, especially the National Enquirer, have had sell the most issues.

News is more about ratings than about actually informing people about things they actually need to know about. The Jon-Bennet Ramsey murder really drew in the crowds, so even though this guy is probably just some nut job that didn't even have anything to do with it, I'm sure they're being told to play this up for all it's worth.