• 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:

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So Nemo, is what we’re calling this? This storm will sound nothing like Ellen DeGeneres as a clownfish (oh wait, she was Dory). Anyway, maybe the Weather Channel can come up with more daunting names next year. Remember Snowpacalyse which hit three years this week? Also Snowmaggedon?

So, what are the networks planning? The Weather Channel had already blown out their reality shows in primetime last night with storm prep coverage. The news and business networks have reporters out in the field.

CNN is planning to be live overnight tonight and into Saturday covering the storm. Chad Myers and Jen Delgado will monitor the storm’s movement from the CNN Weather Center. Reporters and anchors including Jason Carroll, Susan Candiotti, Poppy Harlow, Ali Velshi, Ashleigh Banfield, Zain Asher, Alison Kosik, Mary Snow (appropriately), Gary Tuchman and Brian Todd will be out and about.

Brooke Baldwin anchors overnight coverage from balmy Atlanta. “This is when you know there’s a serious breaking news story,” said Baldwin during 2pmET coverage, “Look at all the pizza boxes at CNN.”

On Fox News, Anna Kooiman and Molly Lyon will report live. The storm has pushed the Saturday morning business block to the afternoon, from 2-4pmET. Kelly Wright and Jamie Colby will continue with live coverage from 10-Noon.

CNN’s latest investigative documentary, “The Coming Storms,” will debut tonight on “CNN Presents” at 8pmET. The show takes a look back at Hurricane Sandy and what lessons can be learned from the superstorm. The special features a variety of CNN’s correspondent, including Jason Carroll, David Mattingly, Ed Lavandera, John Zarrella, Frederik Pleitgen and meteorologist Chad Myers.

Watch a preview here:

Original story posted at 11:11 AM: The second mass shooting in a week is rocking the country, this time at an elementary school in suburban Connecticut. The cable news channel quickly pivoted from politics to the shooting this morning, as word spread.

According to TVEyes, Fox News reported news of the shooting at 10:23, CNN at 10:35 and MSNBC at 10:37. As of 11 AM, all of the networks were citing local “reports” of the shooting. MSNBC eventually handed over its coverage to a local NBC affiliate, which was all over the story.

Shortly after 11 AM, Fox News returned to coverage of Susan Rice’s withdrawal yesterday as a nominee for Secretary of State, while MSNBC and CNN stayed on the school shooting. At 11:15 FNC returned to the shooting, throwing its coverage to a local affiliate in Connecticut.

Update: The broadcast nets have broken in with special reports, as the situation gets more dire. Reports of more than a dozen people, including multiple children, killed.

CBS News says Scott Pelley will anchor the “CBS Evening News” from Connecticut this evening. FNC’s Bill Hemmer will also anchor from CT.

As of 1 PM Fox news has Rick Leventhal in Newtown, CT. CNN has Susan Candiotti in Newtown, and Ashleigh Banfield and Jason Carroll on the story. Fox, CNN and the other networks have correspondents en route.

Update 2: CNN IDed the shooter as Ryan Lanza at 2:15 PM, FNC followed suit at 2:21 and MSNBC at 2:25. Important Update: At 3:30 reports are that Ryan Lanza was not the shooter, but that his brother Adam Lanza was.

Update 3: At 3:15, president Obama gave an emotional statement on the shooting. Every news network picked it up:
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We just dropped by the CNN election viewing party in Times Square. Wolf Blitzer‘s on the big screen, correspondent Jason Carroll will be doing live shots, and for the visitors:  free hot dogs and hot chocolate, which is genius, because it’s 40 degrees right now. The party goes until the election is called, or 3 a.m. whichever comes first. CNN is set up at Duffy Square just a few blocks from Times Square Studios, which is home to ABC’s election coverage.

CNN viewing party in Times Square. During commercial breaks the network broadcasts how to help victims of Hurricane Sandy

Free hot chocolate to visitors at the CNN viewing party in Times Square

CNN will be keeping its usual primetime lineup on tonight to cover Sandy, and will be live until the worst of the storm passes, whenever that may be. Anchors Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett will be reporting in the field tonight across primetime. CNN International will be simulcasting CNN/U.S. from 11AM-2PM and again starting at 4 PM.

The list of correspondents in the field for CNN is after the jump.

Update: HLN is blowing up its primetime lineup to provide hurricane coverage. Those details are also after the jump.
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The first sign of the verdict in the Jerry Sandusky trial emerged at 10:10pm tonight as reporters bounded down the steps of the courthouse in Bellefonte, PA. The indication of what those verdicts were — guilty on 45 of 48 counts — came as trial-watchers emerged, arms raised, cheering the result.

In the ensuing minutes, reporters and producers from CNN, Fox News and NBC found their camera positions and explained how the verdicts were read and what the reaction was from Sandusky, his family and his victims.

“It’s most likely the end of Jerry Sandusky,” said Shepard Smith who lead coverage on Fox News. “It’s as sad as anything I’ve covered,” Smith said. FNC’s David Lee Miller reported from outside the courthouse while producer Shira Bush was inside for the verdict.

Anderson Cooper anchored on CNN as Jason Carroll and Susan Candiotti reported from the courthouse and legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin phoned in.

“He’s going to die in prison, where he should die,” said Toobin. “This is an evil, evil man.”

“Many of us thought the jury would mistry. But they didn’t led down lady justice,” said Nancy Grace anchoring on HLN while on MSNBC her former Court TV colleague Catherine Crier was a guest on MSNBC’s coverage anchored by Ed Schultz.

In her remarks after the verdict, prosecutor Linda Kelly singled out the media for their “exceptional attentiveness and thoroughness, with much thoughtful commentary and insightful analysis.”

He’s been to the deep before, now James Cameron is heading back, attempting to make a deep dive into the most remote place on earth — the Mariana Trench.

The Academy Award winning director of “Titanic” — which returns to theaters as the 100th anniversary of the sinking nears — is heading to the South Pacific.

Why?

CNN’s Jason Carroll, who traveled along with Cameron for a CNN special airing tonight, tells TVNewser, Cameron “plans to collect organisms from the extreme environment, which could advance science and redefine how we view life.”

Cameron has been test-diving the high-tech, one-man submersible “Deepsea Challenger” designed to take him to the deepest known point on the planet. “During my interview with Cameron onboard his expedition ship in the South Pacific, he told me he his willing to face the risks involved because of how much can be learned,” Carroll says.

Carroll has interviewed Cameron twice before: during the making of “Avatar” and again during the Gulf Oil spill. “Cameron asked me if I got sea sick. I told him ‘no,’ says Carroll. “That’s when he told me about his plans for Challenger Deep and if I wanted to go. Two years later, the call came in and off I went.”

“Extreme Dive: 7 Miles Underwater” airs tonight on CNN at 10:30pmET

CNN’s Jason Carroll is a National Correspondent, which means he mostly travels the U.S. reporting on domestic stories. But this week, he finds himself embedded with the 101st Airborne in the dangerous Paktika province of Afghanistan.

“It all started in the United States,” he told TVNewser via phone from Forward Operating Base Sharana just a few days into his first trip to Afghanistan. “That’s where their experience started and I decided to follow wherever they ended up.”

Right now, Carroll is following Sgt Randy Shorter (Far left) for a series called “A Soldiers Story,” the idea for which came from a conversation Carroll had with some friends.

“I was having a heated discussion as to why they weren’t paying attention to stories about Afghanistan,” he said. When his friends told him they’d become fatigued, he came up with the idea to track a soldier through the deployment process. “I thought, ‘There’s got to be a way to get people more interested…given all the sacrifices being made.”

Shorter and two recent enlistees have been featured so far. Carroll said he was drawn to Shorter’s story because it was his third tour. “We wanted to see what it was like for those soldiers who had been here before, who had multiple deployments, to see how they emotionally deal with that.”

Carroll’s trip comes just a few months after General McChrystal’s resignation and we wondered if the events surrounding it had impacted soldiers’ attitude toward the press.

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