News broke late last night of a car bomb located in New York’s heavily-trafficked Times Square (AP story). Here’s how the initial coverage looked across the cable networks as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s press conference which was carried live at 2:25amET:
MSNBC broke into “Lockup” at 11:20pmET and went into full live coverage with Peter Alexander anchoring from Washington until 3amET. when the network went back into tape with Thomas Roberts, who’s been freelancing with the network, providing news updates.
Fox News’s Marianne Rafferty provided a breaking news alert at 11:30pmET, between “Journal Editorial Report” and “Fox News Watch,” with the network going into full coverage at midnight until 3:15amET. Rafferty delivered more updates afterward.
CNN was in “Larry King Live” until midnight when it aired a breaking news update from CNN International anchor Natalie Allen. CNN/CNNI went wall-to-wall on the story beginning at 1amET, which continued with Don Lemon and T.J. Holmes straight through to the following morning.