"Breaking news: Troops are still in Iraq."

"Breaking news: Bush will speak today at the White House."

"Breaking news: Seung-Hui Cho suffered from depression."

I think the breaking news would be if Seung-Hui Cho didn't suffer from some sort of mental disorder. It would be breaking news if he were an average student who was totally sane and went on a killing spree.

Breaking news has been used one too many times for the phrase to even resonate with meaning.

And I'm not blaming just one news organization. I just thought deeming a story "Breaking news" was supposed to be a big deal, and literally mean the story was breaking right then and there.

It seems like newscasters say "Breaking news" to preface every story, which defies the definition of "breaking."

Speaking of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University, let me mention that I didn't even look twice at the TV when I first saw on CNN that something like this happened. Do you know why? Because it said "Breaking news," so I ignored it.

I had looked up at the TV about five minutes earlier, and it had said something like "Breaking news: Anna Nicole Smith's baby's daddy revealed."

And the time before that, it probably said, "Breaking news: Britney Spears divorces K-Fed and spends night on the town with Paris Hilton."

Which are perfect examples of things that really were not breaking news, or news at all. Unless we're talking about E! Entertainment Television.

I am so desensitized from the phrase that it wasn't until someone told me how serious the situation was at Virginia Tech that I actually started paying attention.

You can only say "Breaking news" so many times in front of so many stories until it starts to lose its effect.

Yes, Virginia Tech was breaking news. But only for a day or so. The media needs to move on and, instead of announcing "Breaking news: People mourn the Virginia shootings," keep us updated with actual "breaking" news. Celebrity gossip excluded.

For example, last week the Supreme Court upheld a federal statute banning partial-birth abortions. This could have used some more coverage. And maybe it would have if media outlets stopped obsessing about Virginia Tech.

Or if media outlets would stop the obsession with "infotainment" and actually concentrate on news and things that affect the country greater than stars and scandal. There is a time and a place for those things, but not in serious news outlets.

I'm not trying to be insensitive about what happened in Virginia. It was a tragedy, and I'm not downplaying the events of April 16. It just seems as if this is an example of how one piece of breaking news can surface, and the media will follow up with the story and treat the follow-up stories like they, too, are breaking news.

This happened in the Tara and Stephen Grant case in February in Metro Detroit. The breaking news was that Stephen killed his wife and dismembered her, yet all the news stations in Detroit played nothing but live footage of helicopters circling the house, even before Stephen was convicted.

Those stations were deciding that the Grant case was the only story anyone could watch for a few weeks, and their extensive coverage of the story pretty much convicted him before he was even tried.

Let's get serious. The breaking news was when we learned Stephen mangled his wife's body and left her in the garage — the news didn't take place in their driveway four days later. It was over, and I don't understand why news directors didn't see that too and focus on something new.

Though news stations are indeed driven by ratings, organizations shouldn't compromise their values by focusing on cases of sensationalized drama as a substitute for investigating, finding new stories and angles.

By continually using the term "Breaking news," the news stations are making themselves seem less credible. Britney Spears' shaved head isn't something that should be flashing on CNN alongside Darfur and Baghdad.

Michelle Ortlieb is a State News intern. Reach her at ortliebm@msu.edu.