Washington’s local TV news teams mobilized Wednesday to cover the morning shooting at a GOP baseball practice, feeding the networks with some of the first reports from the Alexandria, Va., scene.
Fox O&O WTTG led early coverage of the shooting, in which majority whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and at least four others were reportedly shot. The station, which has a locally produced morning show, reported the 7:09 a.m. incident roughly 30 minutes after it occurred.
WTTG’s coverage included an initial interview with Sen. Jeff Flake as the Arizona Republican left the ball field, which was aired by Fox News as well as stations across the group, the Fox rep said.
Early coverage provided by NBC O&O WRC and WJLA, Sinclair’s ABC affiliate, also was broadcast across the country as the networks scrambled to get their own crews to the YMCA where a gunman fired about 50 shots. WUSA, Tegna's CBS affiliate, also launched into local reports.
Before launching its own wall-to-wall coverage, CNN broadcast WJLA’s feed. NBC aired numerous shots from WRC, which mobilized its chopper as well as news team. The O&O moved into its own nonstop coverage after airing the network’s special report earlier in the day, according to the station.
Here are some examples of the coverage:
(Photo via Gage Skidmores Flickr. Image taken on June 13, 2017 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 9x16 aspect ratio.)
