Cablers Go Into Overtime To Cover Docking Cruise Ship

By Alex Weprin 

The Carnival Triumph successfully docked in Mobile, Alabama last night around 10:20 PM. Passengers slowly disembarked, with the final guests getting off the ship in the middle of the night.

All of the cable news channels covered it, in different ways, of course. CNN made the cruise ship disaster the big story of the day, and was going wall-to-wall throughout the night, although the anchors did find time to cover the other big stories as well. On Fox News and MSNBC, cruise updates were mentioned during the primetime programs, but were typically not a focus.

Until 10 PM that is.

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While CNN stayed wall-to-wall, Fox News Channel’s “On the Record” dedicated the entire hour to covering the ship’s docking. On MSNBC’s “The Last Word”, a debate about John Boehner was interrupted at 10:23 PM so that the network could go live covering the cruise ship. Ed Schultz anchored the breaking news update.

All three networks went live into the 11 PM hour to cover the docking and disembarking.

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