"This just in... A white, floating, human-like figure has been spotted descending from the sky in Omaha. All across the country, people are being pulled up to this bright, glowing figure in the sky... The AP is reporting that The Rapture may be taking place..............."
"OH, WAIT!! We're breaking away now -- Michael Jackson is leaving the courtroom out on the West Coast!! Let's go LIVE to our reporter on the scene!......."
ROFLMAO!! Too true!
HA! Most excellent parody!
The pupose of a lot of this "breaking away" stuff is not a NEWS decision. It's a marketing decision. A certain amaount of this "break away" format and pace is necessary to hold some people's interest and give it a sense of suspense and excitement to those with only a passing or perfunctory or non-existent awareness of real news events. If some of the hardcore news junkies on FR ran the Fox News programming format, I'm sure it would be extremely informative, poignant, and pithy. But, I'm afraid overall viewership would take a dip. And without the eyeballs and the advertisers, you wouldn't have a venue to do the hardcore news stuff.
Actually, you're not far off the mark....