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July 22, 2024, 11:21 a.m.

BREAKING: The ways people hear about big news these days; “into a million pieces,” says source

The New York Times and the Washington Post compete with meme accounts for the chance to be first with a big headline.

It’s not often that massive political news breaks on a Sunday afternoon — especially one in steamy late July, the leading edge of the Greater August vacation season. But break news Joe Biden most certainly did with this tweet announcing he would not run for reelection this fall.

And as always, that big news reached people in a wide variety of ways. Like from Shams Charania, whose usual big breaks involve NBA trades (“how does this impact LeBron’s legacy”). Social media has encouraged people to think that, if the news is really important, it’ll find them. So how did it find people on Sunday?

I subscribe to an inordinate number of breaking-news emails, so in my inbox at least, the earliest senders in order were: Axios, Gannett, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Dallas Morning News, Vanity Fair, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, La.), Bloomberg, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The 19th, Vox. (YMMV, of course.)

And Matt Taylor of the Financial Times was tracking push notifications as they came in; congrats to CNBC.

Here’s an obviously incomplete list of some of the ways that Americans and others around the world heard the news.

A lifeguard on the loudspeaker at a D.C. pool

Live TV playing at the gym

A Twitter account that tracks whether or not Liza Minnelli has yet outlived a particular person or thing:

A friend’s text with a link to The Guardian

Top-of-the-hour headlines on a public radio station

An “old-school message board”

Horny copypasta

Phone call from college-aged son while during housework

A New York Times push alert

A push alert at Whataburger

A text from someone sitting nearby at a Nationals game

This tweet:

The chat in a Twitch stream of a live crossword competition

In a discipleship class at church

In a bar-exam-prep Discord channel

From the happy screams of 100-plus women at a mass outdoor workout

Push alerts while taping a Dungeons & Dragons podcast

BBC push alert during a Dungeons & Dragons game

This tweet:

From the radio announcers at a Yankees game

From the radio announcers at a Mets game

An American Girl doll-themed Instagram meme account:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by hellicity (@hellicity_merriman)

From a Try Guy at a farmer’s market

“In a text from my husband…from across the room…because he didn’t want to say it out loud because we were at my conservative dad’s house for a family birthday party.”

A news alert on a patient’s Apple Watch mid-exam

A Discord notification: “It’s Kamencing”

The Twitter account of a Minecraft server

An Alexa notification

An email alert from The New York Times

“For the first time ever, Apple News push alert actually broke news to me”

This fact-challenged tweet:

A push alert in an ice cave

A spouse asking a smart speaker: “hey Google, who’s going to replace Joe Biden?”

This viral TikTok:

@tswiftfan420♬ original sound – Molly

“On a queer camping trip on the yuba river, a friend got an update text from her girlfriend that their pepper plant had new peppers on it…and also Joe Biden pulled out”

Overheard in an hour-long lobster-roll line in Maine

A text: “YOOOOOO”

Watching MSNBC

“From a reality TV Instagram account posting how the current Big Brother candidates won’t know that Biden dropped out of the race til October. “

This meme:

“FB alert from a fellow journalist while sitting at a dog agility trial waiting to run my corgi”

Overheard at an art gallery

Wall Street Journal push notification while grocery shopping at Publix

Slack

Joshua Benton is the senior writer and former director of Nieman Lab. You can reach him via email (joshua_benton@harvard.edu) or Twitter DM (@jbenton).
POSTED     July 22, 2024, 11:21 a.m.
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