Miners Dead: Notes & Quotes

> CNN broke the news around 2:45am. MSNBC followed several minutes later. FNC was almost 10 minutes behind CNN. All of the cable nets stayed live until regular programming started.

> Bill Hemmer was live in WV from 3 to 5am, whene Fox & Friends took over.

> MSNBC’s Rita Cosby scored the first post-press conference interview with the WV governor.

> CNN took its first commercial break at 4:15am. After seven hours of nonstop anchoring, Anderson Cooper handed the mic to Miles O’Brien at 4:17am. The 360 logo was replaced by American Morning’s.

> HLN continued simulcasting CNN/U.S. through at least 4:45am…

> NBC’s Brian Mooar on Early Today: “This all sounded too good to be true, and in fact, it was exactly that.”

> Following the press conferences, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta held up Wednesday’s USA Today with the headline “12 miners found alive.”

> CBS correspondent Bob Orr on Up to the Minute: “To see these faces and to see the pain these families have experienced, it’s heartbreaking, and that’s not even a good enough word for it.”

> Objectivity went out the window as the anchors and reporters expressed shock and dismay to the reversal of fortune. “This is truly the future of news — like the aftermath of Katrina, nothing makes the airbrushed anchors and reporters seem more human than watching them react with everyone else to tragedy, raw and unedited,” an e-mailer says…

> Bill Fitzgerald hosted an NBC News Special Report for affiliates around 3:40am.

> When word came that the miners were dead, CNN International rejoined CNN/U.S.’s live coverage.

> “It is hard to put into words the range of emotions that we have seen played out over the last five hours or so,” Anderson Cooper said, calling it a “horrific and extraordinary evening.”

> FNC’s Mike Emanuel: “In the TV news business you wait for the money shot” — in this case, the miners reuniting with their families — “and we did not see any of that.” Also: As time went on we became more and more concerned that the information may be changing.”

> An e-mailer loves Pipeline: “When the news of one survivor broke…HLN and Pipeline began simulcasting CNN-US, the latter on the CNN International pipe. At the same time, pipe #3 was feeding the raw pictures from Randi Kaye’s position. THIS is why I pay $25/year.”

Earlier:

> CNN’s Joe Johns, at St. Joseph’s Hospital, was first to report that one of the miners was in critical condition.

> At 2am: FOXNews.com’s headline: “A West Virginia Miracle.” CNN.com’s banner headline: ‘We got 12 alive!’ MSNBC.com’s headline: “Miracle At Mine.”

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