LONDON. A conglomerate of major news broadcasters today came together to announce they would no longer be covering anything that happened more than twenty-four hours ago, branding it “yesterday’s news”. The broadcasters, who include BBC, Sky, ITV and CNN, revealed they instead intend to focus on real-time breaking news and commentary. The move was widely forecast by industry experts. “The time when viewers wanted news reporting to be accurate and reliable has come and gone”, said Mark Johnson, a London-based media analyst. “What people want is to know what’s happening now. No one cares if it’s important or true - so long as it’s happening now. People who watch twenty-four hour news channels don’t want twenty-five or twenty-six hour news. They want twenty-four hour news.”

The announcement was made by The News Broadcasters Assocation, an organisation whose mission statement is “to promote the common interests of news broadcasters”, but it seen by many as a news cartel seeking to restrict competition and dictate the news agenda. Their chief executive is new-romantic-popstar turned media-mogul, Larry Lombardi. “We’ve got big plans”, Lombardi told reporters at a press conference this afternoon. “We want to increase the number of reporters we have standing in front of things that have just happened. That is a big part of our plan. Across the industry there are also plans for brighter graphics that scroll across the screen even faster than ever before. We’re also looking to introduce new channels, like our new Twitter channel or the Super Breaking News Channel, which will have news that isn’t yet breaking news, or might turn out not to be news at all.”

As well as providing benefits to viewers, Lombardi admitted that the industry itself would benefit too. “The move will allow us to make substantial savings, that is true,” he added. “Our news archives can go, because history isn’t as important or interesting as what’s happening now. We also expect to be able to trim the fat in our editorial departments. No story will last more than a few hours, so there isn’t the same emphasis for us to get the facts right that there once was. Our army of journalists can, over time be replaced by a combination of citizen journalists and judicial use of the phrases Here’s what we know so far.., it’s too early to say if… and the facts are still coming in. We’re also going to boost the amount of fatuous opinion and commentary, which is cheaper to produce.” Lombardi was quick to defend criticisms of the change in programming. “Real-time people talking in real-time about real-time news”, he said. “That is the future”.