New York Gov. David Paterson, who’s been surrounded by scandal of late, just announced he would not seek a full term.
Fox News first reported the news this morning at 9:59amET citing their corporate cousin the New York Post; MSNBC was next at 10:07 citing NBC News, and CNN at 10:16 citing the AP.
At 3:13pmET, FNC, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, and FBN carried Paterson’s official announcement live.
“Today, I’m announcing I’m ending my campaign for governor of the state of New York,” Paterson said. “It has become increasingly clear to me in the last few days that I cannot run for office and try to manage the state’s business at the same time.”
In New York, WCBS-2, WNYW-5, WABC-7, WWOR-9 and WPIX-11, carried the press conference. WNBC-4 was the only local station not to carry it as the station was airing the Olympic semi-final hockey game between USA and Finland. In fact, Team USA scored two goals during the Governor’s remarks, and a third during the post-news conference analysis. At this hour (3:30pmET) Team USA is up 6-0. WNBC’s digital channel, New York Nonstop, carried Paterson’s announcement in full.
> At 3:50pmET, NBC News aired a network-wide update on Paterson’s announcement between periods of the hockey game, anchored by NBC’s Chris Jansing from Vancouver.