The cable news networks pivoted to breaking news in Massachusetts shortly after 3pmET Monday afternoon as two explosions went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Fox News was the first cable news network to report the news at 3:06:18 p.m., followed just seconds later by CNN at 3:06:53 p.m. MSNBC reported the news at 3:08:45 p.m. All three cable news networks were several minutes minutes behind the first reports of the explosions on Twitter.

Fox News and CNN are relying on live pictures from Boston local stations. MSNBC has video from New England Cable News, which is owned and operated by NBC Universal.

> More: The broadcast networks also broke in with news of the explosions. CBS News was first at 3:10pmET, followed by ABC News and NBC News at 3:13 p.m. Scott Pelley is anchoring on CBS, Brian Williams on NBC and Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos on ABC.

> More: Matt Frucci, the incoming executive producer of CNN’s new morning show, is doing eyewitness reports from the scene for the network. Wolf Blitzer is anchoring. And on Fox News, Shepard Smith is talking with WGBH’s Emily Rooney, former network executive and daughter of Andy Rooney.

> More: Anderson Cooper is on his way to Boston and will anchor at 8pmET and 10pmET.

> More: Here’s affiliate video of one of the explosions, as seen on CNN:

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Andy Rooney‘s family has donated the contents of his CBS office — including his desk, typewriter and bookshelves — to the Newseum.

The entire donation is 40 “bins, boxes and parcels of material” from his office, which he moved in to in 1985. Although there are no immediate plans to display the artifacts, the process of “unpacking and cataloguing” the material will begin right away, the Newseum said.

Rooney delivered his last “60 Minutes” essay from the walnut desk in September, just one month before he died.

NBC News president Steve Capus and ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz were among the honorees at the 22nd annual First Amendment Dinner and Awards in Washington, DC last night.

Capus was presented with the First Amendment Leadership award by “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams. (Both arrived in DC after spending the afternoon at the NBC News upfront in New York.) In his speech, Capus called on news organizations to maintain public trust, implicitly referring to News Corporation’s News of the World hacking scandal:

Last fall, we witnessed a frightening example of a news organization allegedly abusing the privacy rights of citizens in order to access information on their cell phones, of all things. Regardless of how this all went down, it was truly a fall. It’s a scary example of what can happen when we lose sight of ethical journalism and the importance of trust.

Raddatz was presented the Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment Award by her ABC colleague Jonathan Karl. Raddatz said international reporting is “something I’ve been passionate about, and I appreciate that ABC has been supportive of that passion over the years and invested in coverage.”

The RTDNF presented the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence to the family of the late Andy Rooney. WGBH TV’s Emily Rooney accepted the award on her father’s behalf.

Fox News Channel anchor Kelly Wright was the evening’s emcee.

> Related, TVSpy: NY Stations Carry Live Coverage of Verdict in Rutgers Webcam Spying Case

Brian Rooney, son of the late legendary CBS Newsman Andy Rooney, will be contributing to the network his father first joined in 1949.

CBS announced today Rooney will “contribute occasional reports to CBS News broadcasts and platforms.”

Rooney spent 22 years as a correspondent for ABC News. He was among more than 300 staffers laid off during severe cutbacks at the network in early 2010. The West Coast-based Rooney reported from Thailand and Indonesia after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, he spent time in Baghdad covering the Iraqi insurgency and in the fall of 2003, led ABC’s coverage of the wildfires that swept through Southern California. He was also one of the first ABC reporters to arrive in San Francisco after the October 1989 earthquake.

Rooney joined ABC News in 1988 from WBBM-TV in Chicago, where he had been a general assignment reporter since 1985. Rooney will continue reporting for KCET in Los Angeles. Brian Rooney acted as the host at his father’s memorial service in January.

• Andy Rooney is leaving behind a $9 million estate to be divided between his four children, including tvnewsers Brian and Emily Rooney — $8 million in stocks, bonds and cash and $1 million in property. Brian Rooney tells the Daily News, “Some years he made more money than others. When he made it, he stashed it away. He could have had a $50 million estate if he’d paid attention to it.”

• Anderson Cooper is selling his New York City apartment (right). Cooper bought the former manufacturing space in 2005 for $2.48 million and, after updates, is listing it for $3.75 million. The 3,100 square foot, two-floor penthouse in the Garment District also includes a landscaped deck with gas grill adding an additional 1,700 square feet.

• CBS’s Lara Logan, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and CNN’s Sara Sidner are among The Daily Beast’s “150 Fearless Women.” Editors cited Logan who “repeatedly put herself in the line of fire;” they say Mitchell’s resilience covering “the largely male-dominated worlds of foreign afffairs, politics and government” is to be commended; and Sidner was honored for “fearlessly reporting” scenes in recent years from India, Egypt and Libya.

As New York Giants fans crowded into lower Manhattan for this morning’s ticker tape parade celebrating the Super Bowl champions — covered live on all of the local TV stations — one of their most loyal fans was watching from above. Here’s a “60 Minutes” flashback, to 1987, when Andy Rooney went to Giants Stadium with his game-plan for an end to what would become a 24-day players strike. “Now if only I could get Diane Sawyer to do the cheer-leading.”

Friends and colleagues from across the TV spectrum joined Andy Rooney‘s four children this morning at Rose Hall, bidding farewell to the CBS News essayist, who died November 4 following complications from minor surgery.

Rooney’s son Brian Rooney, a longtime correspondent at ABC News, hosted the memorial service which included remarks from Andy Rooney’s three daughters, Ellen Rooney, Emily Rooney and Martha Fishel and Rooney’s girlfriend of 7 years, former “Today” show “girl” Beryl Pfizer, who had known Rooney since 1950. Rooney’s grandchildren were there, including Justin Fishel Pentagon producer for Fox News Channel.

Brian Rooney talked about how, over the past several weeks he’s gone through his father’s belongings and found everything from a $6,000 uncashed check from CBS, to a diary entry dated March 8, 1941: “Went to Gallagher’s. Don’t get chicken at a steakhouse.”

“What you saw, was the same show that we had at dinnertime,” said Rooney.

CBS News chairman and “60 Minutes” EP Jeff Fager as well as Rooney’s “60″ family: Morley Safer, Steve Kroft and Scott Pelley all spoke at the service.

Safer talked of Rooney’s “rich, eccentric legacy.” A man who filled American homes “like a piece of the Sunday furniture, like a portrait on the wall, like the TV itself.”

Safer then introduced a video which included outtakes of his interview with Rooney conducted last Spring. Showing a picture of the early correspondents: Harry Reasoner, Mike Wallace and Diane Sawyer, Rooney stopped at Sawyer — who was not able to attend. “She’s the prettiest girl I

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As we have noted, the late Andy Rooney has a number of descendants working in TV news. One of those is his grandson, Fox News producer Justin Fishel.

Fishel wrote a “farewell” to his grandfather on Foxnews.com, recounting some of his more memorable stories:

When I graduated from college he harassed me about work.  He didn’t have much pity for the unemployed.  He wanted to know what I was doing, like any curious grandfather.  Well, I was living at home with my parents.  So he took it upon himself to call at 5:30 am… every morning.  He prided himself on being up early.  I’d answer the phone next to my bed.

“Hello?” I’d say.

“Jud- you find work yet?”  (He called me Jud)

“Grandpa?” I’d answer, in a half conscious stupor.

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• Well this is sad. TMZ reports that the college roommate of CBS News commentator Andy Rooney passed away at a memorial service for the TV personality. The man supposedly had a heart attack during a trip to the bathroom at the Century Club, and was declared dead on the scene.

> Update: Now TMZ reports the roommate, Bob Ruthman was revived and is in the ICU at a local hospital. TMZ pins the false information on Rooney’s son ABC News correspondent Brian Rooney.

Sunday’s “60 Minutes” drew 13.3 million Total Viewers making it the 12th most-watched primetime show of the week. Sunday’s show featured Morley Safer‘s interview with Andy Rooney, the longtime commentator on the show who died Friday night following complications from minor surgery. Rooney was 92 and delivered his final “60 Minutes” essay just last month.

“60 Minutes” had stiff competition from the New York Giants/New England Patriots game on FOX which drew 29 million viewers. The Giants pulled out stunning last second win at Foxborough stadium. In the Eastern and Central Time Zones the game ended not long before the Rooney segment began on CBS.

Rooney, six years older than the New York Giants organization, was a lifelong Giants fan and season ticket holder. “Even Andy was probably watching that game,” an insider quips.