Reverse Flow of Sourcing Breaking News

Liberal democratic societies have taken to a huge shift with regards to media and have raised questions on the undermining of fourth estate by fifth estate. Fourth estate appears to be more and more losing out its strength to the fifth estate, starting right from choosing and formulating the breaking news. In light of the ferocious and mounting competition of live fever, the breaking news has a reverse flow today from the digital media to television and other mainstream media. There also is a shift, in the nature of breaking news from sudden happening, which had importance; to urgent news, which is more catchy, provocative, and engrossing. Usage of social media, the fifth estate in breaking news has become the practice to uncover news quickly. Hence, the patterns of breaking news production and consumption are an important part of the reversal in the making of news. Immediacy is the key reason behind the phenomenon. The use of search engines on social media to find keywords today leads to breaking news. The chapter covers the way news is gathered, distributed, and consumed. It further explores the reasons, challenges, and implications of the emergent phenomena. Various examples to show how social media posts have become, not only the breaking news but full stories in television debates and further in newspapers are cited and discussed. New patterns are definitely shaping the rapidly evolving news ecology. There is clearly a need to study the emerging patterns and designs of new developments in making of news.