Les Moonves, Katie Couric and Sean McManus at St. Bartholomew church for the funeral for Walter Cronkite.

We’re keeping our eye on CBSNews.com and the funeral service for Walter Cronkite which will begin at 2pmET. Already at St. Bartholomew in Midtown Manhattan we’ve spotted Bill Plante, Bob Schieffer, Aaron Brown, Maggie Rodriguez and Harry Smith; Steve Kroft chatting with Linda Mason, who was the first female producer on the Evening News and is now an SVP at CBS News. One pew in front of Mason is Katie Couric who is seated between CBS News & Sports president Sean McManus and CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves.

ABC News president David Westin arrived around 1:20pm and is sitting with Diane Sawyer.

Also, Connie Chung, actors Jerry Stiller and his wife Anne Meara. Brian Williams arrived on the church steps at 1:25 followed by Barbara Walters and Charlie Gibson arriving arm-in-arm at 1:27pm and Tom Brokaw and wife Meredith at 1:35pm. A few minutes later Andy Rooney arrived with his son, ABC News correspondent Brian Rooney. NBC News president Steve Capus, Dan Rather, Don Hewitt, former 60 Minutes correspondent-turned-NBC anchor Meredith Vieira also spotted.

Again, you can watch coverage of the service on CBSNews.com…

Brian Rooney and his father Andy Rooney arrive at St. Bartholomew Church

> 2:20pm: From Andy Rooney’s eulogy: “Walter was such a good friend. I can’t get over it… I just feel so terrible about Walter’s death I can hardly say anything. Please excuse me. Thank you.”

The cable news networks are dipping in to the funeral while NY1 in New York City is carrying the funeral live.

Click continued to see a list of some of the other tvnewsers in attendance, and more pictures from after service..

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The White House press briefing this afternoon has been contentious, with some major give-and-take between CNN’s Ed Henry, ABC’s Jake Tapper and other correspondents as they pressed press secretary Robert Gibbs over the decision today by Pres. Obama not to release detainee abuse photos.

All three cablers were taking it live when the tension was lifted briefly by a series of cell phone rings, first from John Gizzi of Human Events. “Just put it on vibrate, man, we did this before,” said Gibbs. When it rang again, Gibbs stepped off the podium, demanded the phone, and tossed to an aide in the back room. When Gibbs began to answer the question, CBS’ Bill Plante‘s phone rang. But Plante ignored Gibbs’ request to hand it over. Instead, Plante, a 28-year White House veteran, left the room to laughter. About five minutes later Plante returned to his front-row seat.

Click continued to see the video…and for an update on who Plante was talking to.

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CBS’s Bill Plante just now at Robert Gibbs‘ first White House press briefing, questioned the administration over ABC’s inauguration night exclusive with President Obama…

Plante: How is it transparent when it looks like pay to play when the president gives his only interview on inauguration night to a network that’s paid $2 million for the privilege of exclusive coverage of an event… the Neighborhood Ball?

Gibbs: No interview is decided on by me or anybody else who works for the president based on who might sponsor an activity.

Interestingly, Plante was standing, off to the side, not seated in the front row as most of the broadcast network correspondents are. >Update: CBS’s chief White House correspondent Chip Reid was seated in the front row.

More notes from the briefing coming up in another post, including one CNN anchor’s message to a former CNNer: “Tell him I said hi and I miss him working for CNN…”

> Update: From Chris Cilliza‘s Twitter feed: “Plante is a gatekeeper of White House press…he is standing up for how things are done…this will be a constant push/pull”

Our spies spotted several tvnewsers at last night’s White House Christmas party — from ABC Kathy O’Hearn and Terry Moran; from CBS Bill Plante and Maggie Rodriguez; from NBC Chuck Todd, Kelly O’Donnell and David Gregory; from FNC John Moody, Gretchen Carlson, and Steve Doocy; from CNN David Bohrman and husband and wife correspondent/anchor team of Dana Bash & John King; from FBN Jenna Lee, Kevin Magee and Ray Hennessey; and from CNBC Matt Cuddy and Nick Dunn.

Several guests brought their kids as escorts including Maureen Orth with son Luke Russert, FBN’s Liz Claman brought her daughter and FNC’s Brit Hume brought his granddaughter.

> More: Maria Bartiromo, Bill O’Reilly and Greta Van Susteren also attended.