What's Breaking News?
We bring you the biggest breaking stories as they happen, 24 hours a day. Our experienced, caffeinated journalists scour the planet for breaking news, quickly sifting out unconfirmed reports and duplicate stories. We boil it down to a reliable, real-time feed that focuses on just what's new. No need to keep refreshing; updates appear automatically, and you can find us on just about every web, mobile and social channel available.
We're best known for our @breakingnews Twitter feed, but our mobile and tablet apps are popular for customizable coverage and lightning-fast push alerts. Over on BreakingNews.com, we publish a full firehose of breaking updates. You can also find us on Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and Instagram.
Why we do what we do
In today's social media world, breaking news is everywhere. From thousands of news organizations to millions of "accidental journalists" armed with smart phones, breaking stories are screaming for your attention every minute of the day. It's increasingly hard to keep track of it all—and know what's real. Our goal is to make breaking news matter again, instantly alerting you of the stories you need and want to know. No screaming, no fluff, no rumors—just news.
How we do it
We've surrounded ourselves with computer screens and custom tools to help us discover and verify breaking news quickly. We also depend on an awesome community of nearly 300 news organizations that tip our editors via Twitter hashtags. As news organizations and eyewitnesses break original stories, we link them directly, sending an average of 200K clicks a day. We're a social media wire that gives credit where credit is due.
We also need your tips, too. If you see a breaking story—for example, on Twitter or YouTube—click "Submit a Link" on BreakingNews.com to alert our editors.
Who are you?
We're a group of dozen or so journalists and technologists who work in Seattle, New York, London and Portland. We believe the future of news is to solve problems for people, and we've started an unprecedented company to do just that. We're part of NBC News Digital, but we're a standalone, agnostic startup that thrives on bringing journalism and technology together in new and innovative ways.
For behind-the-scenes accounts from our team, check out our blog and @breaking Twitter account. And drop us a note anytime.
Our history
The Twitter account @breakingnews was launched by Michael Van Poppel in 2007, and the Msnbc Interactive Network took over the handle in a deal with Van Poppel's BNO News in 2009. Over the next couple years, a small team inside Msnbc Interactive expanded real-time coverage to BreakingNews.com, mobile apps and new social channels. The team grew into a standalone startup called Breaking News, which was part of NBC’s acquisition of Msnbc Interactive in 2012. Today, Breaking News is part of the NBC News Digital Network.
