How cable news announced Dolly Parton’s death

News of the death of country music legend Dolly Parton began surfacing around 1:53 p.m. Eastern and cable networks were in the early part of their afternoon schedules. 

FNC beat its rivals to the story by about 7 minutes.

“America Reports” was preparing to roll into another hour when it returned from a commercial break at 1:58 p.m. with its “Fox News Alert” stinger to deliver the news. 

CNN had just started a block of “CNN NewsCentral” and was in the middle of setting up a story about the South Carolina senate primary runoff. Anchor Brianna Keilar had just read the intro to the story and was preparing to toss to a live report from the White House when she paused to switch gears and announce Parton’s death.

The live shot of the correspondent, along with Senate runoff graphics, were on the video walls behind her, but the network changed both of the LED spans behind her separately to generic “CNN NewsCentral” imagery as she announced the news.

MS NOW, meanwhile, was at the top of the first hour of “The Moment with Katy Tur.” Anchor Katy Tur was interviewing a guest about the Supreme Court decision on mail-in voting when she switched gears at 2:05 p.m. to deliver the news. After a brief on-camera update, she tossed to a pre-produced package detailing Parton’s life.