Fox News, CNN and MSNBC have all been in breaking news coverage of the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn. since shortly before 11 a.m. Friday morning. The early coverage provided by FNC, CNN and MSNBC relied heavily on affiliates from Hartford and New York City as the cable networks rushed to get their own correspondents to the scene.

Fox News used aerial coverage from WNYW, the Fox O&O in New York City, as well as images from WFSB, the CBS affiliate in Hartford, while WNYW’s chopper was en route.

MSNBC used aerial pictures provided by NBC O&O WVIT, which was the first station in Hartford to report the shooting this morning.

CNN is affiliated with three Hartford stations — WFSB, WTIC and WTNH, as well as New York City ABC O&O WABC (pictured). The network has used coverage from all of them today.

Local Hartford stations broke in to regular programming this morning to cover the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

NBC-owned WVIT reported the news at 10:26 a.m. with a quick update at  from morning anchor Brad Drazen who asked viewers to stay tuned for more information before going to break.

• Related, TVNewser: Cablers Pivot to School Shooting

CBS affiliate WFSB reported the news at 10:29 a.m. with anchor Eric Parker. ABC affiliate WTNH reported it at 10:30 a.m., breaking into the “Rachael Ray” show” with a special report anchored by Keith Kountz.

News 12 Connecticut arrived  on the scene at 10:53 a.m., cutting in to reporter Frank Recchia‘s piece and quickly going to live footage from its Chopper 12.

During breaking news coverage of a mall shooting in Portland Tuesday, KGW reporter Mike Benner interviewed the mall’s Santa Claus, who was seeing children at the time of the shooting (video above).

“Santa, what is going through your mind as this is happening?” Benner asked the man, who said he heard up to 16 shots before taking cover.

The interview didn’t impress one local news veteran, who emailed TVSpy: “Why is this reporter referring to this guy as Santa. He’s a guy in a suit. During breaking news of this magnitude, he’s not Santa.”

A man driving a U-Haul truck led police on a high-speed chase through the streets of Miami Friday afternoon.

Two of the Miami stations, ABC affiliate WPLG and Fox affiliate WSVN, were in the middle of the noon newscasts when the news broke. WSVN was the first to start following the chase at 12:21 p.m., with photographer Ralph Rayburn in its chopper and Alexis Rivera and Christine Cruz at the anchor desk. WPLG began covering it at 12:35 p.m. with Constance Jones anchoring. Read more

New York stations were prepping their morning newscasts Thursday morning when Lindsay Lohan was arrested in Chelsea for allegedly assaulting a woman at a nightclub shortly after 4amET.

WCBS and WABC both reported the news at 5:33 a.m. WCBS reported the actress was “being questioned in an altercation.” WBAC reported Lohan has been arrested and said a WABC crew was on the way to the police station.

WNBC and WNYW both reported the news at 5:41 a.m., with WNBC citing TMZ. WPIX, reporting the news at 5:42 a.m., already had Mike Gilliam live from the 10th precinct in Chelsea, the first reporter on the scene. Read more

For WNYW-WWOR in New York City, Hurricane Sandy coverage has been a “total team effort.”

“It’s been all hands on deck,” vice president and news director Dianne Doctor told TVSpy Thursday morning. “I’m really proud of our people and I think we’ve done a great job.”

Staffers at the Fox duopoly (like reporter Kerry Drew, pictured) have been working in 12 hour shifts since Sunday, the day before Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey. Crews who have been out in the field for four days are now facing a new challenge: gas lines in the Tri-state area that stretch for miles, snarling traffic on the Jersey Turnpike. Doctor said the station has contracted out private suppliers of fuel to keep their satellite trucks running.

“We’re having difficulty as well but we’re pretty resourceful. Our crews know their areas pretty well. They’ve been able to keep gas supplies coming,” Doctor said. “But it is a challenge.” Read more

Stations in New York City have partially returned to regular programming today after several days of breaking news coverage of Hurricane Sandy. The five major local stations in New York City — ABC O&O WABC, NBC O&O WNBC, CBS O&O WCBS, Fox O&O WNYW and CW affiliate WPIX — had all returned to regular programming by Wednesday morning. The stations continue to break in to regular programming for press conferences from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York governor Andrew Cuomo.

• Related, TVNewser: Kurtz: Sandy ‘Lived Up To The Media Hype’

During the storm, WABC captured particularly compelling video of one of the Sandy’s most dramatic moments — the evacuation of 215 critical care patients, including the neonatal and pediatric intensive care units, from NYU Langone Medical Center after its backup generator failed. Watch:

Local stations in New York City have been in continuing coverage since Hurricane Sandy stormed ashore on Monday. The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica reflects on NY1′s coverage, calling it “a prime-time anchor in the tumult of the storm”:

Over the course of the night, its broadcast became a comforting town square, the coverage not as improvisational as you might expect. The plan seemed to be to find someone — a correspondent, a spokesman, a politician — with something to say, and stick with that person until someone else wanted to speak. One by one, they took their turn, everyone from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to representatives of Con Edison and various local elected officials, speaking at length, and often in detail, and often until cut short by a dial tone or a burst of silence when the connection was lost.

The stars, though, were the reporters in the field and the anchors steering the coverage, Lewis Dodley and Elizabeth Kaledin. The meteorologist John Davitt, in an ocean blue shirt, faced the camera squarely, not in front of a hyperactive map, explaining things serenely through the night.

Stations who streamed their live coverage of Hurricane Sandy on their websites and mobile apps are reporting record traffic according to Broadcasting & Cable.

The ABC O&O, WPVI in Philadelphia, hit a single day record of 13.1 million page views across mobile and desktop on Monday October 29^th and had over 9 million page views on Sunday, October 28^th.  Meanwhile, The ABC owned WABC station in New York City also hit a record 7 million page views on mobile and desktop on October 29, when it had 2 million unique visitors.

B&C also said stations who streamed coverage also drove downloads of their mobile apps.  As of this writing, Cablevision’s News12 (#2), Philadelphia ABC O&O WPVI (#5), Boston’s ABC affiliate WCVB (#7), WFSB the CBS affiliate for Hartford-New Haven, CT (#8) and New York’s ABC O&O WABC (#10) occupied 5 of the top ten free news apps available on iTunes.  CNN holds the top spot.

Hurricane Sandy is approaching the Tri-State area at this hour, and the high winds are already wreaking havoc on New York City. Shortly before 3pmET, stations reported on a crane collapse in midtown Manhattan. The crane, perched on top of a high-end residential building currently under construction, is currently dangling off the high-rise building.

• Related, TVNewser: Tropical Storm Force Winds Begin Taking Toll on New York City, Crane Dangles 90 Stories Up

WABC was the first station to report the news at 2:44 p.m. WCBS was next at 2:46, followed by WNBC at 2:50 and WPIX at 2:53.

The WCBS studio, located on 57th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, is just down the street from the crane collapse site, 57th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. More pictures after the jump. Read more