It was a moment tailor-made for cable news. The final Chilean miner is pulled to the surface, and it happens at 8:55 PM, the heart of primetime on the east coast.
CNN and Fox News broke into “Parker Spitzer” and “The O’Reilly Factor” respectively to cover the final ascent, and the emotional aftermath when the miner, shift leader Luis Urzua, was greeted by Chile’s president and his family.
MSNBC, which did not see much of a ratings bump the previous night when the rescue began, stayed with “Countdown,” where the subject was “Republican gay baiting.”
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The screengrabs below were taken at 8:55, moments before the capsule reached the surface:
Even Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” covered the rescue… sort of. That clip is after the jump.