Execution: CNN Didn’t Have A Witness, & Early Morning Notes

> MSNBC’s Rita Cosby and FNC’s Adam Housley witnessed the execution, but CNN did not have a representative.

> Nancy Grace provided a countdown clock to execution on HLN…

> FNC provided live coverage beginning at 3am with Bob Sellers, Claudia Cowan and Jim Hammer.

> 3:03am: “While Fox News Legal Analyst Jim Hammer was live at the execution, a bald man behind him was holding up a piece of paper saying ‘FOX LIES.’ There was a man behind him, could have been a producer or something, that was trying to take the piece of paper away from him.”

> CNN/U.S. simulcasted CNN International for a few minutes, then returned to Larry King on tape. MSNBC stuck with a replay of Hardball.

> At 3:37am FNC was the first to report that Williams was dead, FishbowlNY says.

> During the 4am hour, MSNBC’s Rita Cosby described the execution: “His breathing became very very labored, his stomach was contracting, in extreme form…but then it took at least several more minutes, it took ten more minutes for him to actually die…”

> It was interesting watching FNC coverage of the death of Tookie,” an e-mailer says. “They did their damned best to cut away each time the pool camera cut to Rita Cosby, and when she talked Fox went back to Bob Sellers.”

> FNC’s Adam Housley reported on FNC: “When he had the chance, he very purposely…leaned up, turned to his right, looked directly at the media, and kept a very long stare — you can call it a glare — and stayed on us for some time…it was very deliberate. He knew exactly what he was doing. That was not by any stretch of the imagination a last minute thought — that had been planned.”