This Just In!

Scientists prove water still wet!

News Anchorman: This bulletin has just been handed to me!... Police report that someone is going around handing bulletins to newscasters!... And here's another bulletin!

— Garfield, May 24, 1991

A news anchor is in the midst of some dull story when they're handed a stack of papers from off-screen. They immediately turn their attention to this new story, often beginning with the Stock Phrase: "This Just In..."

The new story is not necessarily plot relevant in any sense and may just be there as a gag.

Sometimes seen as "Breaking News" on twenty-four hour news networks. Older programs might use "We Interrupt This Program..." or "This was just handed to me...".

Often seen in Kent Brockman News or as a buildup to Deadline News.

Sub-Trope of We Interrupt This Program. Compare Extra! Extra! Read All About It!, which is this for newspapers and Breaking News Interruption, when it's the broadcast of a non-news television program that gets interrupted.

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This just in: Examples!

Advertising

• This commercial for Care Bears has news reporters learning that the characters got new looks.

Comic Strips

• Garfield gives us the page quote from this parody.

Films — Animated

• The Brave Little Toaster: "Uh, this just in: Rooney's Vacuums are found out be um, carcinogenic in these lab tests. Big, big tumors on those rats! I've got photos to prove it (shows a photograph of a partially-naked woman), and I don't even wanna look at them! (groans)"]]

Films — Live-Action

• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: "I have just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story. I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen. Cannonball!" [dives into pool]
• Said in Batman (1989) when the Joker's tainted products come to light (just before the female reporter signs off).
• In Bruce Almighty, Bruce's debut night as a news anchor comes to a crashing halt when he sees a video feed of angry mobsters attacking the Lottery Commission, as he's the one who answered their prayers to win the lottery. "This just in..." Before he promptly turns it over to his co-anchor and leaves the set.
• In Coriolanus, due to the Setting Update much exposition is delivered in the form of television news reports. The Messenger in the play becomes a reporter for the Fidelis TV network.
  Reporter: (against footage of soldiers fighting) The citizens of Corioli have issued and given to Lartius and to Marcius battle. I saw our party to their trenches driven, and then I came away—(television switched off)
• In Independence Day, following the failed counter-attack by the Black-Knight fighter squadron over the ruins of Los Angeles, and the destruction their home base MACAS El Toro, we hear this newscast in the middle of the refugee convoy:
  Radio Newscaster: Reports are coming in that this battle has repeated itself all over the globe, with the exact same results.
• The Kentucky Fried Movie: "This Just In: The popcorn you're eating has been pissed in. Story at eleven."
• Mr. Deeds, when a media empire is being dismantled: "Sources indicate that virtually all of Blake's employees are likely to lose their jobs. Wait a minute. I'm a Blake employee!"
• Played for drama following Reese an Sarah's escape from the police station shootout in The Terminator:
  Radio Newscaster: Top story - the largest single law enforcement mobilization in California history is currently underway. Police in five counties are engaged in a massive manhunt for...
• Tomorrow Never Dies has Elliott Carver invoke the phrase to the underlings who run his network's bureaus after getting a report from Stamper about the successful sinking of the Devonshire, part of Carver's plans to engineer a war between Britain and China to get TV broadcast rights in China.

Live-Action TV

• Once on The Day Today, Chris would repeatedly interrupt Alan's sports news segment with breaking reports about John Major having punched The Queen.
• The first episode of Dinosaurs opened with this news report: "A meteor, three times the size of Earth, is heading towards us in a collision course that will result in the extinction of all life on this planet. This just in: No, it's not."
• Parodied on How I Met Your Mother when Marshall, trying to convince Lily not to tell the others that they're trying for a baby because of all the annoying attention they'll receive, treats her to an Imagine Spot of Robin (a news anchor) popping up on the TV with an emergency bulletin loudly announcing "This just in — is what Marshall Eriksen is saying to his wife as he attempts to impregnate her!" and directing a news chopper to circle the Eriksen's apartment and assault them with floodlights.
• On JAG, it happened at least twice on ZNN newscasts.
• Leverage, "The Three Days of the Hunter Job": The news show is in the middle of the stock report when the mark, reporter Monica Hunter, bursts in and demands that they interrupt the broadcast so she can deliver an emergency bulletin. When she finds that her evidence is gone and starts raving about a government cover-up, the anchorwoman whose broadcast was interrupted turns to the camera and reports the breaking news that Monica Hunter has just had a nervous breakdown right there in the studio.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus: Lemon curry?
  • In the Election Special sketch, Michael Palin gets this item:
  And we've just heard from Luton...that my aunt is ill. Probably just gastroenteritis, probably just catarrh.
• Parodied on The Muppet Show when the Muppet Newsman was often injured by the stories he was reporting (while sitting behind a newsdesk).
• Happens twice on Queer as Folk (US):
  • The first time is during the mayoral election right at the end of season 3:
    Newscaster: This Just In: With 84% of the votes counted, it appears we can now declare that the new mayor of Pittsburgh is... Marvin Deekins.
  • The second time is in season 5, when Brian is on his way to the airport and there's a radio announcement about the bombing of Babylon (which he is the owner of at that point), prompting him to order the driver to turn around.
• Parodied on Saturday Night Live in the early days, as Chevy Chase would often announce on the Weekend Update segment "This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."
• Switch Reloaded parodied the ARD's recent tendency to insert special reports more and more often with one ARD-Brennpunkt getting interrupted by another Brennpunkt.
• On The West Wing, C.J. was sometimes handed an update in the middle of briefing the press. It was always bad news.
• Whose Line Is It Anyway? brings us this line in almost all the Weird Newscasters segments.

Radio

• The famous Orson Welles radio version of The War of the Worlds does this, as radio news anchors receive a series of increasingly dire reports.

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: A Loading Screen occasionally has a news report detailing about various events occurring off the main story.
• In Captain Novolin, the eponymous hero learns about the invasion of Blubberman and his aliens disguised as sugary junk food via one of these special reports... All while running on a treadmill for some reason.
• Fallout 4 begins in Boston on October 23rd, 2077 with the TV tuned to the news, which is reporting on some things going on in the Fallout world, like the war with China. Then the robotic butler calls you back to the living room where the anchor reports that a global nuclear exchange has begun, right before a "Please Stand By" message chillingly appears. This is a good time to RUN!
  News Anchor: Followed by blinding... yes, blinding flashes of light. We're trying to get confirmation now. We seem to have lost contact with our affiliate stations. Just coming in now, confirmed, repeat confirmed, reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania... My God.
• LEGO Island plays with a variant of this trope.
  L.E.G.O. Radio Announcer: And this just handed to me — hey, it's my lunch!
• News anchors of the week Pepper Fairbanks and Kip Darling can be heard having a "This just in" off on the radio in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. It is, of course, Played for Laughs, and contains such gems as:
  Kip: This just in, you can't use "This just in" liberally. Information needs to be new and vital to our listener's grasp of the full story!
  Pepper: Well, in that case: This just in, you're a dried up know-it-all!
• In Sonic Mania, the boss of Studiopolis Zone Act 2 is fought with a TV in the background. After the boss is defeated, the TV cuts to a breaking news report, showing that the Flying Battery has returned.
• In VA-11 HALL-A, while Jill is discussing with Stella, the TV in the bar cuts to a news broadcast about the nearby bank being shut off due to its security systems going off and leaving thirty people trapped inside.
• A non-news variation happens in Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, for the fifth Bloodbath Diablos quest:
  Chief Researcher: This Quest is for experienced Special Permit holders only. We've a Bloodbath Diablos at Ingle Isle that needs hunting... Actually, word just in is that there are two Bloodbath Diablos on the island. Good luck, Hunter!

Web Animation

• In the pilot of Hazbin Hotel, After reporting on an ongoing turf war in Hell, 666 News holds an interview with Charlie, the princess of Hell. She announces her plans for a hotel to rehabilitate damned souls so they can go to Heaven to correct Hell's Overpopulation Crisis. After meeting jeers and mocking for her plan, she announces that her project has famed porn star Angel Dust as a patron who has been well behaved for two weeks. Just then, Katie Killjoy hears "Breaking News!" over her earpiece. A new combatant joined the turf war and the live feed reveals it to be Angel Dust, to Charlie's dismay.

Web Comics

• Parodied in this Super Effective comic. This strip was made around the time Michael Jackson died.
  • Done again in this strip, although it could unfortunately be perceived as being insensitive.

Western Animation

• In one episode of Amphibia, Anne talks to Marcy about her being 'in the zone' with a flashback showing Anne watching a sudden news report about snakes getting loose at the zoo, and spotting Marcy blindingly walking towards them.
• In an episode of Back at the Barnyard, Otis disguises himself as a news reporter, and Mrs. Beady, seeing through his ruse, zaps him with a taser.
  Otis: This just in — I'm in terrible pain! [passes out]
• In The Fairly OddParents!, Chet Youbetcha uses this to the point of it being a Catchphrase.
• In one Rocko's Modern Life short, after a TV news chopper crashes while covering a traffic jam, an anchorman is handed a piece of paper to report further traffic delays on the roads caused by a helicopter crash.
• Rick and Morty: In "Rick Potion #9", Summer is watching her Show Within a Show when its interrupted by the news... that is being hosted by mutant human-grasshoppers searching for Morty's whereabouts as a result of Rick's Love Potion and terribly conjured antidote backfiring horribly.
• Handy's news report in The Smurfs (1981) episode "Handy's Window Vision" was interrupted by Gargamel lifting up the roof of his Smurf house to capture him, and he just had time enough to warn his viewers that Gargamel has invaded the village.

Real Life

• A local news woman read from the teleprompter: "This just in--a Huntsville news anchor is about to be proposed to..."
• This example. Somehow, Justin Bieber getting arrested for DUI is more important than a story on the NSA collecting private phone records.
• This clip of a newscast from KJRH interrupts a local news broadcast about hot weather for a NBC Special Report on the Aurora shooting that happened during the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises.
• CBS and NBC were in the middle of their evening newscasts on January 22, 1973 when word came to CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite and NBC's Garrick Utley^note Utley was substituting for regular NBC Nightly News anchor John Chancellor that former President Lyndon Johnson had died from a massive heart attack roughly two hours earlier (in CBS' case, Cronkite got the word directly from LBJ's press secretary, Tom Johnson - no relation); resulting in their newscasts being abruptly changed to accommodate hastily put together obituaries. As for ABC; at that time ABC used a strategy known as "First News" where they offered the ABC Evening News to their affiliates a half-hour earlier than CBS and NBC, meaning that the ABC broadcast had ended prior to LBJ's death hitting the newswires, and no footage of any special reports by ABC have surfaced as of this edit.
• There's a haunting compilation on YouTube that brings together the stories screening on American morning television on 11th September 2001. The everyday banality is Harsher in Hindsight, especially when one breakfast presenter utters the words about it looking like a quiet normal sort of day. The compilation ends, for every broadcaster, when the presenter receives the This Just In prompt.
• This is how news stations in the United States reported on Prince Phillip's death, as it was announced right as the networks were running their morning news programs.
  • Because of time differences, TF1 and France 2^note France's biggest TV networks, were in the middle of their respective One O'Clock News programmes when Buckingham Palace announced the death of Prince Philip. Both anchors broke the news at around 1:15PM^note 12:15PM in the United Kingdom and devoted parts of their respective programmes on tributes to the Duke of Edinburgh.
• This video of a Japanese newscaster. She switches her expression instantly while talking about Japanese chess Shogi and immediately warns the viewers about the earthquake when the earthquake alert starts.
• On June 16, 2021, ABC's afternoon news show GMA 3: What You Need To Know was interrupted for coverage on the summit between President Biden and Vladmir Putin.
• On March 15, 2022, NHK interrupted a news program on the Russian invasion of Ukraine for news of a 7.3 earthquake.
• On June 24, 2022, ABC interrupted local newscasts to announce the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In the New York City area, the report came on a minute after said local newscast discussed it.
• On September 8, 2022, BBC News at 6 was interrupted to announce the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
  • The same thing happened on ABC in the United States: the news broke out during their news program GMA 3: What You Need To Know, as well as on 24/7 news channels such as CNN, MSNBC, etc.
• On January 2, 2024, NHK interrupted its coverage of the aftermath of the previous day's earthquake to report on the collision of Japan Airlines Flight 516 with a Japan Coast Guard plane that was preparing to send aid to earthquake-affected areas.
• On April 19, 2024, CNN and MSNBC were covering the jury selection in the State of New York v. Trump case when a man self-immolated outside the courtroom. CNN's Laura Coates and MSNBC's Yasmin Vossoughian immediately stopped their reporting and began to share their eyewitness accounts of the unfolding situation.

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