Reporters in Guatemala covering the arrest of McAfee anti-virus pioneer John McAfee are in a mad dash to report a new twist in the case this afternoon: McAfee has been rushed to a hospital. ABC’s Matt Gutman and NBC’s Keith Morrison are among the U.S. reporters Tweeting details from the scene:

Media zoo at Interpol Guatemala. EMTs inside with an apparently sick McAfee. yfrog.com/nu8mypjwj

— Keith Morrison (@dateline_keith) December 6, 2012

John McAfee being taken to hospital in Guatemala. Local press is crazy here, now in a high speed chase after Ambulance twitter.com/mattgutmanABC/…

— Matt Gutman (@mattgutmanABC) December 6, 2012

Another day, another round of bombings in Gaza and Israel. A number of foreign journalists, including CNN’s Anderson Cooper, NBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin and reporters for Al Jazeera had their own close calls. Update: ABC’s Matt Gutman also had an incident, check it out after the jump.

Cooper, who had to deal with an explosion live on-air earlier in the week, this time witnessed a series of explosions not far from the building that became CNN’s makeshift headquarters.

NBC News foreign correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin had the window to his hotel room blown out when an Israeli airstrike hit an open field next to his hotel:
Read more

With the situation in Gaza continuing to escalate, the broadcast news divisions are making sure their people are in the region. Additional changes may be made, but for now here is the latest on the assignments in Gaza, Israel and beyond.

ABC News has Christiane Amanpour in Jerusalem, joined by Lama Hasan. Matt Gutman is reporting for ABC from Tel Aviv, while Alexander Marquardt reports from Gaza.

NBC News has Ayman Mohyeldin and Richard Engel in Gaza, Stephanie Gosk and Martin Fletcher in Tel Aviv, Jim Maceda in Cairo, Egypt and Ali Rouzi in Tehran, Iran.

CBS News has Clarissa Ward reporting from Cairo, Charlie D’Agata reporting from Gaza and Allen Pizzey reporting from Israel.

Fox News has Jerusalem correspondents Leland Vittert and David Lee Miller reporting from southwestern Israel, near the Gaza border.

ABC Matt Gutman and a member of his crew were caught up in Hurricane Sandy’s surf along North Carolina Monday morning. Gutman was making his way off the beach just as a wave came through and tossed the crew member into the beach. “Our people are now being pulled off the shoreline now,” said Sam Champion, showing the video in the 8am hour. “We’re pulling up. We’re getting into a safer location.” Champion is stationed in Battery Park City in Manhattan, an evacuation zone for residents. Later today, Champion may find the surf just as rough where he is.

Nearly the same thing happened to CBS’s Chip Reid reporting from Ocean City, MD for “CBS This Morning.” He called in to the show to tell Charlie Rose about it. “The camera is the only thing that did not go down,” said Reid. “A lot of the other equipment was completely drenched.” WATCH:

ABC’s Matt Gutman is covering Hurricane Sandy from North Carolina. And you would know that if you went to CBSNews.com and looked closely at the image on the front page. That’s Gutman trudging through sea foam following a live shot on “Good Morning America”.

TV news organizations are gearing up for covering Sandy. There is still lots of uncertainty  but here is what we know so far. We will update this story as we get more information.

Cable:

The Weather Channel not surprisingly, has a slew of coverage planned. “Wake Up With Al” will air this weekend starting at 5:30 AM, and 5 AM starting next week.

Read more

Bill O’Reilly continues his examination of the media coverage of the Trayvon Martin case. Last night he began his show with the “battle of two network news divisions,” ABC and NBC, “covering the story in completely different ways.” He began with Matt Gutman‘s exclusive angle on the story on “GMA” Friday which showed the bloodied head of George Zimmerman, reportedly taken shortly after he shot Martin to death. O’Reilly:

ABC News has basically been reporting the Martin-Zimmerman case as a hard news story with little commentary attached to it while NBC News news has been doing the exact opposite. That operation is now invested in convicting George Zimmerman of murdering Trayvon.

While for the most part praising ABC’s coverage, and vilifying NBC’s, (“through cable arm MSNBC,” said O’Reilly), the Fox News host cited a British law the allows judges to “prevent the press from reporting on criminal cases that go to trial if authorities believe that justice could be tainted by media expositions.” O’Reilly called ABC’s airing of the blooded Zimmerman photo “troubling.”

Watch after the jump…

Read more

ABC’s Matt Gutman got quite an exclusive late yesterday when he got his hands on Sanford police video of the night George Zimmerman was detained after he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The video shows Zimmerman entering the police station, put in handcuffs, then brought into a detention room. At issue: whether Zimmerman was roughed up, including having a broken nose, as early accounts claim. The video doesn’t seem to show that.

TVSpy: Zimmerman’s Father Tells Fox Affiliate Trayvon Martin Beat His Son

“World News” included the video, and clips aired on CNN’s “AC360″ and FNC’s “Hannity,” while MSNBC’s Ed Schultz kept up a breaking news banner for much of his show. It was also shown on “CBS This Morning” and the “Today” show as well as ABC’s “Good Morning America” today.

But the video did not merit a story — not even a mention — on ABC’s “Nightline,” the only network late night news show. Why not?

Read more

No one can put a precise date on when ABC News started. But it was in 1962 that the network established an assignment desk and newsgathering capabilities: the guts of a TV news organization. And so today, ABCNewsers celebrated 50 years of providing news and information to American homes (and now workplaces and mobile devices).

Employees packed ABC’s TV Studios 1 (former home of “Who Wants to Be Millionaire” and 2 (current home of “The Chew”) which were festooned with images of ABC News anchors and reporters past and present. In addition to hundreds who packed the studio, employees from bureaus around the country and the world were patched in for the celebration.

ABC News president Ben Sherwood was the emcee and was joined by two former ABC News presidents: Bill Sheehan (1974-1977) in Washington, DC and David Westin (1997-2010) in New York. Kaycee Freed Jennings, widow of Peter Jennings, also attended.

The celebration included a video lookback, as well as the first (and probably last) Meatball Awards, presented by Lara Spencer. (The award for tightest t-shirt worn during a natural disaster was a three-way tie going to David Muir, Jeffrey Kofman and Matt Gutman.)

The highlight, insiders say, was John Berman‘s “50 Ways.” With his own lyrics, set to the tune of Paul Simon‘s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” Berman belted out the best of ABC News.

“I think the opportunities at ABC News for our youngest and brightest are nearly limitless and our best days are ahead of us,” said Sherwood at the close of the event.

TV news anchors, correspondents and meteorologists may not have to go far from their New York headquarters to cover Hurricane Irene as the Category 3 storm barrels toward the East Coast.

With the 11amET advisory, the storm continues its catastrophic path toward North Carolina, the DelMarVa peninsula and the coasts of New Jersey, New York and New England.

The Weather Channel just added an “EXTREME” threat level category from eastern North Carolina to southern New England.

NBC’s Al Roker is in the appropriately named Duck, NC alongside his Weather Channel colleague Stephanie
Abrams. “We’ll stay here through tomorrow then head to either coastal New Jersey or New York,” Roker tells TVNewser between liveshots on MSNBC.

ABC’s Matt Gutman, CBS’s Mark Strassman, NBC’s Kerry Sanders, CNN’s John Zarrella and FNC’s John

Read more