BREAKING NEWS TO CROWD OUT THE MOST RECENT BREAKING NEWS!
Illustrated by Giovanni Uche
There is a point when news first breaks of an event where we all sit and watch in awe. We don’t quite know if it’s real yet, or how true the news we are hearing of actually is. “Can it be that bad?” we wonder, hand over mouth, eyes agog, clutching our purse or a close friend’s hand. Whether it be a contemporary celebrity breakup or an ancient discovery, breaking news will forever be a part of humanity’s fabric. It is said that the term “breaking news” was first codified by the Associated Press in 1906, when the wire wanted to designate something they were reporting as vitally important to viewers and listeners. Now, of course, in a world where it has become increas- ingly harder to tell what is “vital” to staying alive, (i.e. Tom Brady and Gisele breaking up won’t kill us, but an impending Nor’easter storm or a pandemic might, or, at least, come close) we are forced to look and listen with more discerning eyes and ears and dig deeper for our- selves. “Fake news” anyone? Of all the more historically notable breaking news cases, one stands out: when we realized the Earth revolved around the Sun, actually, everything revolved around the sun . Somehow, in an unfathomable feat of human metrics, a Polish man with a mop of hair named Nicolaus Coperni- cus broke the civilization-changing news. “You mean to say humans aren’t the center of the Universe???” You see, it did take almost a century for Copernicus’ discovery to be accepted as fact.That once-breaking news moment turned into a slog of ideological bureaucracy.We imagine fistfights and beheadings like never before. After all, breaking news does that to people, it brings out the best and the worst of us. Something so banal and trivial and innocuous to one person can become cannon fodder for another. Some jump to fear, others jump to courage. Copernicus’ breaking news came in the year of 1543 when he penned a treatise entitled “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.” 1 It is also said that around 1800 years earlier, a Greek astronomer named Aristarchus of Samos had also proposed the same idea, but it was es- sentially impossible for him to completely formulate the theory. So, time did its usual mysterious dance and landed Copernicus at the center of the maelstrom. Before the news of an impending storm breaks (literal or metaphorical) we have the gathering up of the force. People might start feeling the energy in the distance or sensing something beyond the five senses. But what we know for sure is that the first foray into shifting communi- ties on all levels we have ‘breaking news.’ A splash across the screen, a flash of light, an indication that a connection is made; a connection between something out there and bringing us closer to the greatest resource we have in the face of Copernican-like discoveries, that of holding one another close. “Precisely…” “Blasphemy!” Sigh…
— Augustus Britton
1 Though Flat-Earthers can still be found casting menacing glares and brandishing weaponry in proxy to your nearest local ballot box, it’s important to note that “On The Revolutions of The Heavenly Spheres,” published in 1543, examines the heliocentric theory. This treatise, presented by Nicolaus Copernicus, offers the idea that the Earth moves as a planet around the Sun.
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