I think at times there are things best seen in motion. Unfortunately, the nightly news does not do this (and CBS speficially told views to search the internet if they wanted to see the Nick Berg video).
In older generations they turned to newsreels. Not to discover breaking news, but to see footage of a story that was already covered in print.
The "news" of a 30 minute national broadcast boils down to about 6-8 minutes of headlines coverage, spoken updates with some footage and remote reporters.
Then they take a commercial break and get into the "Eye on America" type news-magazine pieces that could air at any date. Some are single person histories to say why the job market is rough, or how one person is struggling with health care costs, or maybe a story using canned footage from some biotech firm boasting about the lastest medical "breakthrough". The most laughable were CBS Evening News' "Reality check". Um, shouldn't these disections of the era's talking points be discussed as they are presented rather than playing "catch up"?
Take another commercial break and a few more headlines (that were hyped earlier in the broadcast). Close with something light and trivial.