The three U.S. evening newscasts spent a combined 32 minutes and 45 seconds on the killing of Muammar Gaddafi on their newscasts Thursday evening, extending their first blocks beyond the 10-minute mark.
A Libyan news anchor smiles while reporting the news of Muammar Gaddafi's death, as shown on NBC Nightly News Thursday night.
NBC spent 11:02 on the story, leading off with chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel on set in New York. Then reports from Adrienne Mong, the only U.S. network correspondent in Misrata, Libya, Jim Miklaszewski was at the Pentagon, Andrea Mitchell had a look-back on Gaddafi’s life and Brian Williams had an on-set interview with a counter-terrorism official.
ABC’s “World News” anchored by George Stephanopoulos spent 10:45 on the story, leading off Christiane Amanpour on set. Amanpour had the most recent U.S. network interview with Gaddafi in late February as the insurgency was flaring up. Later on “Nightline” Amanpour had an interview with an American woman who had worked for the Gaddafi family up until just a few months ago. She’d set up the Amanpour-Gaddafi interview. Jake Tapper reported from the White House, David Muir talked with a man who lost his brother in the Pan Am 103 bombing and Barbara Walters was on set to talk about her interview with the “Mad Dog of the Middle East” in 1989. Stephanopoulos added he’d interviewed Gaddafi in 2003.
The “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” spent 10:58 on the story, including the lead which was tracked by Pelley and a Skype interview with freelance American journalist Holly Pickett who rode the ambulance with Gaddafi in his final moments. Kitty Logan reported from Tripoli, David Martin was at the Pentagon, Mark Phillips had a look-back and Jim Axelrod reported on the families of the survivors of the Pan Am 103 bombing.
We’ve embedded several stories after the jump…