At 4:53pmET, a massive 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti. CNN reported the news at 5:12pmET during the “Situation Room.” Fox News’ Uma Pemmaraju reported it at 5:29pmET during “Glenn Beck.” MSNBC provided an update with the news at 5:37pmET during “Hardball.”
In the 7pmET hour, CNN and Fox News had full coverage of the earthquake during their news programs, and MSNBC had the replay of “Hardball” with an update at 7:45pmET.
Update: CNN has had extensive coverage of the earthquake all evening and is sending Anderson Cooper to Haiti. After the first hour of “AC360,” Cooper, who was also on Jay Leno‘s 10@10 this evening, handed the broadcast over to Jessica Yellin so he could catch a plane to the Dominican Republic.
Update: Mediaite’s Rachel Sklar gives a rundown of her observations during last night’s coverage: At 8pm, Campbell Brown had live coverage of the earthquake while Bill O’Reilly was taped and Keith Olbermann did not mention the earthquake. Rachel Maddow had live coverage at 9 and 11pm and, on CNN, Larry King had earthquake coverage mixed with discussion of Leno and Conan until Cooper took over.
Inside Cable News points out that CNN was live until 1amET, FNC went into tape starting at 11pmET, and MSNBC was live with David Shuster at midnight until 1amET.