{"id":769,"date":"2002-10-24T17:01:09","date_gmt":"2002-10-25T07:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2002\/10\/24\/breaking-news-something-happened\/"},"modified":"2019-12-06T08:53:57","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T16:53:57","slug":"breaking-news-something-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2002\/10\/24\/breaking-news-something-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking news: something happened"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:15712,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.sptimes.com\\\/2002\\\/10\\\/23\\\/Columns\\\/And_now__this_breakin.shtml&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20130718175807\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.sptimes.com\\\/2002\\\/10\\\/23\\\/Columns\\\/And_now__this_breakin.shtml&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-13 21:50:35&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 04:02:16&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-03 17:27:50&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-03 17:27:50&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>This would be funnier if it weren&#8217;t so damn accurate:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  ANCHOR: Now, this breaking news. Something has reportedly happened. Details are sketchy, and we really don&#8217;t have any idea of what it might be, but let&#8217;s show these impressive aerial shots from our helicopter. Now let&#8217;s go to our correspondent in the field to tell us that he doesn&#8217;t know anything. Bob?<\/p>\n<p>  CORRESPONDENT: Paula? I&#8217;m sorry, I couldn&#8217;t really hear you, but let me say that out here we really have no idea of what&#8217;s going on. But my sources tell me that something definitely has happened. All I can say is that we&#8217;ll find out as soon as possible. In the meantime, everybody should stay tuned to CNN.<\/p>\n<p>  ANCHOR: Thank you. As you can see, CNN sources now are confirming to CNN that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sptimes.com\/2002\/10\/23\/Columns\/And_now__this_breakin.shtml\" title=\"St. Petersburg Times: And now, this breaking news\u2026\">something has, indeed, happened.<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Y&#8217;know, I think that this is one of the (many) reasons that I have yet to regret giving up on television years ago. Most of the time I use the dearth of worthwhile shows as my reasoning, but even the news rarely seems to have actual content anymore. The last time I actually paid for cable access was in late 1999, to watch two things: first, the Bush\/Gore presidential debates, and second, to watch the Y2K turnover.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, so I&#8217;ll admit that no news <em>was<\/em> good news in the case of Y2K, but when even the circus of the 2000 presidential race can&#8217;t coax intelligent commentary out of the talking heads that pass as news anchors\u2026why bother?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve got newspapers available, which I can skim through to sieve the content from the drivel. And I&#8217;ve got the &#8216;net \u2014 which, while certainly not drivel-free (far from it, in fact), does allow me to both weed through a much larger set of sources to find information, and gives a far broader spectrum of commentators a voice. Often, I&#8217;ve been finding that those who expound on a topic because they want to, and because they have strong feelings for or against it, rather than those who talk because they&#8217;re paid to talk, come up with much more interesting things to say.<\/p>\n<p>Then there&#8217;s people like me. Who just talk &#8217;cause talking&#8217;s fun. And hope that we&#8217;re occasionally lucky enough to create something worth reading (grin).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now, this breaking news. Something has reportedly happened. Details are sketchy, and we really don&#8217;t have any idea of what it might be, but let&#8217;s show these impressive aerial shots from our helicopter. Now let&#8217;s go to our correspondent in the field to tell us that he doesn&#8217;t know anything. Bob?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2043],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-links"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}