Phoenix Stations, Cable News and the Car Chase/Self-Inflicted Shooting

The Phoenix stations are hustling to cover the caught on video story of a police car chase that ended in the suspect shooting himself, which went viral in a matter of minutes after it aired live on Fox News Channel. The KSAZ website had it first, with a brief writeup and a fuzzy photo at 2:44 ET, though it did not post the controversial video.

KSAZ is owned by Fox.

The Scripps station, KNXV, had a story up on its site at 3:39 ET.  The story mentioned the clip running on FNC:

Helicopter video of the pursuit was carried live around the country on Fox News. Because of what Fox News called a technical mistake, the apparent death of the suspect was shown live on the air. Fox News host Shepard Smith personally apologized, saying, “that didn’t belong on TV.”

Twitter positively lit up in the minutes after it aired. Tweeted Drudge Report: Car chase ends with suicide live on national TV… **WARNING: GRAPHIC**

The KTKV site and KPNX’s joint AZCentral.com site did not have the story up by 4:10 ET. [UPDATE: Both linked to AP stories on the chase/shooting after this first posted.]

KPHO.com didn’t either, but did have some other auto mishaps, including a story about a woman pulled over for driving 105 m.p.h, claiming she couldn’t wait to see her boyfriend. [UPDATE: KPHO.com posted the story at 4:19, an AP one.]

Fox News says police have not confirmed whether the man was killed from the self-inflicted gunshot.

Huffington Post had the word “Suicide” in the headline, though the story calls it an “apparent suicide.”

I don’t see the story on the CNN home page.