An apparatus for receiving high-speed bursts of input news-type text data and displaying this data on a low-speed LED matrix display is disclosed. The input data is placed into one of two circular input buffers, one buffer is for regular stories and the other buffer is for "flash" or particularly important stories. The stories in the flash buffer are displayed prior to regular stories with several modes of interrupting available. When the contents of the buffers reach a first certain predetermined limit, paragraphs subsequent to the first paragraph of stories are discarded prior to display. Likewise, when the contents of the buffers reach a second certain predetermined limit, all paragraphs of the stories are discarded prior to display and only the headline is displayed.