Overwhelming News, Except in Prime Time

ABC, for example, said it expanded its "World News" broadcast by five minutes to offer more news about the shootings, and expanded "Nightline" from its usual half-hour to a full hour. It will have more coverage on its morning program, "Good Morning America."

"No one watching ABC today could conclude that it wasn't a big, huge, important story," said ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider. "Obviously, it's very important. But at the same time, we don't want to be endlessly repeating the same information."

CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius called the shootings "obviously a huge story, and we will be covering it aggressively. CBS viewers will be very well informed." CBS expanded its evening news to a full hour yesterday.

Both CBS and ABC will devote the 10-to-11 p.m. hour of their evening schedules tonight to the aftermath of the shooting. CBS normally airs "48 Hours Mystery," examinations of real-life murders, in that time period; ABC will preempt "Boston Legal."

Fox, which has the smallest network-news division, had no plans for any prime-time preemption. "It's a fluid situation and we're monitoring it," said Fox spokesman Scott Grogin.

All of which disappoints media critics such as Kunkel. "We're accustomed to 24/7 cable news," he said, "but we as Americans are still enculturated that when a story reaches a certain scale it reaches into network scale. When it's on the networks, it says, 'Hey, folks, we as a nation need to pay attention to this.' When it's in prime time, it says we as a country are stepping back and having a national conversation about it."

Staff writer John Maynard contributed to this report.