Friday night capped off a long week for local, state and federal investigators, the people of Watertown, Cambridge and Boston and the media covering the manhunt for 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and this longer than most week in Boston. A few of the correspondents still on the scene last night had put in some of the longest days in a long time. “I guess I started working thursday at 5:00 a.m. and have been working straight through,” said NBC’s Kerry Sanders, a Boston area native, not long after Tsarnaev was taken into custody last night. “It’s hard to keep clear everything that’s been going on.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper began reporting Thursday morning too, through the chaotic overnight events of Friday morning, into late Friday afternoon. FNC’s Bill Hemmer reported for about 32 hours straight Thursday into Friday. And NBC’s Lester Holt, stationed in Watertown, a city which had been under siege all day, finally jubilant as local, state and federal officials made their way out of town. “They were preparing for the worst. Now they are basking in the applause of the crowd. I may be punchy because I have gone 40-some hours without sleep,” said Holt, adding, “I have a big grin on my face. This does take me back to one of the very few good memories of the time related around 9/11. That was when we recognized the hard job our first responders do. They got their credit. That’s what we are seeing here in Watertown tonight.”

Holt, Sanders and dozens of other correspondents and anchors — network and local — who’ve worked long hours all week, are back on the air this morning as the full investigation into the bombings gets underway.

The broadcast networks have expanded their coverage into the late-morning as the manhunt for 19-year-old Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev intensifies.

The networks are preparing for extended coverage throughout the day and CBS News has already scheduled a primetime special at 9pmET anchored by Scott Pelley. Also, “Evening News” will be expanded to an hour.

More: “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” will expand to a full hour tonight. “Rock Center” will dedicate the full live hour (10pmET/9pmCT) to the investigation.

More: ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer” will also be an hour. Elizabeth Vargas anchors a special edition of “20/20″ from Boston tonight.

More: Fox News is preempting “The Five” today, instead Bill Hemmer will anchor the hour from Boston. Shepard Smith will anchor his shows from Watertown and Greta Van Susteren will anchor from 10pm-Midnight also from Watertown.

More: CNN’s will be live until at least 1am, starting at 7pm, in this order: Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, Piers Morgan, Cooper, Burnett, Morgan.

Developing…

• Brian Williams will anchor “NBC Nightly News” from Boston tonight.
• “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” will be expanded to an hour tonight. Terry Moran will anchor “Nightline” from Boston.
• Scott Pelley will anchor “CBS Evening News” from Boston.
• Shepard Smith will anchor his two Fox News Channel programs, “Studio B” and “The Fox Report,” from Boston tonight. He will be joined by Bill Hemmer, who arrived in Boston last night and anchored “America’s Newsroom” from the crime scene this morning. Rick Leventhal will also report from Boston during the network’s normal primetime programming. Molly Line and Mike Tobin are also in Boston for the network.
• On CNN, Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer will host their afternoon shows from Boston. Anderson Cooper is also there and will anchor “AC360″ live at 8pmET and 10pmET. In place of re-airs, Erin Burnett will be live at 11pmET and Piers Morgan live at 12amET, both from New York. Chris Cuomo, John Berman, Sanjay Gupta, Don Lemon, Brooke Baldwin, Poppy Harlow, Brian Todd, Jason Carroll, Peter Hamby, Zain Asher, Gary Tuchman, Drew Griffin, Pamela Brown and Maria Santana are also in Boston for CNN.
• Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto will host his 8pmET show live for the rest of the week.

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:

Read more

• ABC’s Robin Roberts, FNC’s Bill Hemmer CNN’s VP of programming Janelle Rodriguez have been named to Variety’s Daytime TV Impact Honorees List.

• The Writers Guild of America has negotiated a new three-year agreement with CBS News, covering approximately 325 newswriters, editors, desk assistants, assistant producers and production assistants in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

• Meghan McCain won’t be doing a TV show with Bristol Palin called McCain-Palin, at least according to McCain. FishbowlDC has the tweets.

GLAAD lashed out at Fox News this week after anchors Jamie Colby and Kimberly Guilfoyle attended the organization’s annual media awards, calling the network’s track record on LGBT issues “abysmal.” But according to an email obtained by TVNewser, a GLAAD executive encouraged Colby and Guilfoyle — among others at Fox News — to attend the event.

In a statement to Equality Matters, which is run by Media Matters Action Network, GLAAD’s vice president of communications Rich Ferraro used Colby and Guilfoyle’s attendance to condemn Fox News:

If Kimberly and Jamie expect to attend future GLAAD events, they will first need to sit down with us to discuss Fox News’ embarrassing, biased and misinformed coverage of LGBT issues. The invitation is open. Fox News’s track record on LGBT issues is abysmal, and it makes no sense to me why any LGBT people or allies would want to be a part of that.

TVNewser has obtained an email from GLAAD director of creative development Marc Honaker urging a current FNC staffer to “ask [Roger] Ailes or Suzanne [Scott] to buy a table for FNC.”

Honaker, who once worked for Bill O’Reilly‘s show, said in the email that Colby and Guilfoyle had an expressed an interest in attending, writing, “We’d love to have lots of FNCers!”

Read the full email after the jump.  Read more

Unprecedented in modern times, the Papal departure was covered by a thoroughly modern media. From the complex (multiple live cameras and locations) to the simple (Twitter.)

As Pope Benedict XVI began his final day as the leader of the Roman Catholic church, the broadcast networks produced special reports early this morning, while the cablers went into rolling coverage for much of the morning. CBS broke in for their special report at 10:44amET as Benedict departed for the final time. ABC and NBC followed at 10:53 and FOX at 11:02am. Vatican TV provided a multi-camera, multi-vehicle production which was carried by all the networks. From the Papal residence, through the Hills of Rome to an awaiting helicopter, and the short flight to Castel Gandolfo, cameras followed, anchors commented, priests analyzed. As Norah O’Donnell explained on CBS, “19 high definition cameras carefully choreographed so that we can see this historic moment.”

On cable news, we saw the pairing of Chris Cuomo and Erin Burnett, perhaps a sign of things to come for CNN mornings. (As the Papal departure was unfolding, Jeff Zucker was introducing the new EP of the morning show, veteran producer Jim Murphy). On MSNBC, the news fell in Chris Jansing‘s hour. A veteran of Papal coverage, Jansing will return to Rome for the Conclave. Fox News had Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum anchoring in New York while Fr. Jonathan Morris, who has been with Fox since shortly after Benedict became Pope, gave analysis from Rome.

By 11:50am, the broadcast networks had returned to regular programming and by Noon the cable networks moved on to the other news of the day.

And as he was being driven away from the Vatican for the final time, a Tweet was sent from @pontifex, the Pope’s Twitter account:

Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives.

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) February 28, 2013

Fox News Channel’s 2013 Presidential Inauguration coverage will begin Sunday morning and continue through Monday night, with Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly behind the anchor desk.

Baier and Kelly will anchor during the private ceremony Sunday at 11 AM, as well as the network’s coverage of the public ceremony Monday from 11AM-3 PM and from 8:40-10PM.

Contributors to the special programming will include Brit Hume, Chris Wallace and “The Five” co-hosts Bob Beckel, Juan Williams and Dana Perino. Karl Rove, Stephen Hayes, Charles Krauthammer and Kirsten Powers will also contribute.

On Monday, Bill Hemmer, Martha MacCallum, Shepard Smith and Neil Cavuto will anchor their programs live from Lafayette Park. In primetime, Bill O’Reilly and Greta Van Susteren will host their shows live.

As has become de rigueur, FNC will also be streaming the event on its website.

After Anderson and Kathy and Megyn and Bill signed off last night, the Senate came to a deal — by a vote of 89 to 8 — to avert a full dive over the fiscal cliff. The House meets this afternoon with a vote coming possibly today, or tomorrow before the new Congress convenes on Thursday. Voting began after 1:45amET with the Senate adjourning at 2:31am.

CNN International was covering the vote when at 1:50amET CNN/U.S. broke into a re-air of the Anderson Cooper Kathy Griffin New Year’s Eve special taking the feed anchored by John Vause with CNN Radio’s Lisa Desjardins on the phone from Capitol Hill. At 1:51am, Mara Schiavocampo broke into MSNBC’s coverage as the vote was going on with Mike Viqueira reporting from the Hill by phone. (Schiavocampo is back on the air anchoring the 10am hour). Patti Ann Browne broke into a re-air of FNC’s Megyn Kelly and Bill Hemmer New Year’s Eve special at 2:08am after the vote occurred. Correspondents Doug Mckelway and Chad Pergram reported from Washington.

Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly will be back in Times Square on New Year’s Eve to host Fox News Channel’s “All American New Year.”

FNC’s coverage will run from 11pm-12:30amET. Hemmer and Kelly will be joined by Fox News’ Kimberly Guilfoyle, Greg Gutfeld, Anna Kooiman and Maria Molina. The special will also feature performances by Pat Benetar, Sarah Brightman and the cast of Broadway’s “Million Dollar Quartet.”

As in past years, Fox News will run holiday texts from viewers on the ticker during the New Year’s Eve special, which will also be streamed on FoxNews.com.