The videotape opens with a long shot of the spacecraft climbing steadily into the sky, cuts to a telephoto closeup just seconds before the sudden fireball, then switches to a wider view of the billowing smoke and steam. It was played and replayed countless times, run in slow motion and stop-action, narrated by anchormen and pored over by technical experts. For all the resources and manpower deployed by the news media after Tuesday's shuttle explosion, everything seemed mere annotation to that single two-minute clip.
The deluge of TV and press coverage that follows a disaster has become an unavoidable feature of the media age. But the shuttle story was unique. Unlike an assassination or airplane hijacking--events that continue to unfold and reveal new elements--the shuttle catastrophe essentially began and ended in seconds. NASA officials and the victims' relatives cut themselves off from reporters, and there were no further pictures of the accident to be seen. Apart from chronicling the nation's grief (including a moving memorial service in Houston three days later), the networks could add little but speculation to the story on Tuesday.
Yet the magnitude of the tragedy commanded the nation's attention. Even the White House staff and some NASA controllers in Houston admitted later that they watched television throughout the day for whatever news could be gleaned. "We all shared in this experience in an instantaneous way because of television," said ABC Anchorman Peter Jennings. "I can't recall any time or crisis in history when television has had such an impact."
Like most Americans, television news editors had begun to treat space shuttle flights as routine. Cable News Network, the Atlanta-based all-news channel, was the only network to carry live coverage of the shuttle launch. Correspondent Tom Mintier, narrating the spacecraft's ascent, retreated into shocked silence for several seconds following the blast. Then, after the explosion was confirmed by Mission Control, he announced "what appears to be a major catastrophe in America's space program."
The three broadcast networks broke into regular programming within six minutes and stayed on the air for more than five hours; each returned later for an hour-long prime-time special. (The commercial-free coverage cost the networks an estimated $9 million in lost advertising revenue. ABC switchboards also fielded more than 1,200 complaints about pre-empted soap operas.)
Dan Rather of CBS first heard the news in his New York office and raced into a "flash" studio set up for such crises, going on the air without makeup or his customary contact lenses. His counterparts, NBC's Tom Brokaw and ABC's Jennings, were at a White House briefing, in preparation for Tuesday's scheduled State of the Union address, when Presidential Chief of Staff Donald Regan announced the news. The two anchormen raced out of the room together, heading for their Washington studios. Brokaw got a taxi first, but Jennings beat him onto the air, sliding into a seat next to Morning Newsman Steve Bell shortly after noon. Brokaw joined NBC's John Palmer, anchoring in New York, a few minutes later.