A View From the Control Room During the Trump Rally Shooting: 'History Playing out Onscreen''

Saturdays are typically slow news days—but that wasn't true this past weekend. At 6:12 p.m. on July 13, former President Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, PA. Within seconds, a routine campaign event became an almost-tragic scenario. The shooting was captured live on multiple news outlets and led to blanket coverage across all networks, with control rooms immediately switching to breaking news mode on the fly to cover the rapidly-unfolding events. As the evening progressed, marquee network talent started making onscreen appearances, signifying the seriousness of the moment. The assassination attempt resulted in the death of the shooter as well as a Trump supporter in the crowd, while two additional attendees were injured. The candidate was swiftly evacuated from the rally and declared safe by the Secret Service roughly 30 minutes after the shooting. Trump was seen with blood on his head as he left the scene and he later said on social media that a bullet struck him in the upper part of his ear. It was one thing to watch the assassination attempt on television—covering the story from the control room was an entirely different experience. TVNewser caught up with some of the control room leaders that were on duty on Saturday night, including Jerry Andrews, vice president of weekend news at Fox News; Paige Lobdell, executive producer, special projects and events at NewsNation; and Brian Donlon, senior director of live news at Scripps News. The trio shared behind the scenes stories about how their teams scrambled to keep up with events and the collective experience of watching history being made on their screens. [caption id="attachment_550539" align="aligncenter" width="862"] NewsNation's Chicago control room during the Trump assassination attempt.(Courtesy Paige Lobdell/NewsNation)[/caption] Can you set the scene inside the control room before shots were fired? Jerry Andrews: Usually during a Trump rally or a live event that you expect to last for an hour or more, the control room can take a breath for the first few minutes and concentrate on keeping an eye on the competition and doing some on-air housekeeping—making sure your best visuals are on air in terms of chyrons, video to accompany the live speaker, etc. The usual fast pace slows down a bit at that point. This was the scene in the first few minutes of Trump’s rally Saturday evening. Paige Lobdell: The control room was monitoring the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, while at the same time, we were just beginning our evening block of “NewsNation Now” with host Adrienne Bankert. National correspondent Robert Sherman was on location at the rally. We'd planned to broadcast live remarks by the former president since we were preparing for the RNC Convention, and this was the first rally he'd held in some time. We knew our viewers would be interested in hearing what he had to say about the upcoming week, his pending Vice President pick announcement and his comments on the race against President Biden. We thought he might even break news on the VP pick during the rally, so we were especially attuned to what he was saying. Brian Donlon: Our senior producers run the shows on the weekends, and we have a meeting on Friday to discuss what we're going to do. We said we’d take President Trump because we thought he might talk about the VP thing. I said, “We'll take them live no matter what.” As it turns out [on Saturday], I was about five minutes from the studio. I was listening to [the Scripps News broadcast] on SiriusXM and I heard the commotion and knew something was wrong. I immediately came over to the studio and I got here literally as the former president was carted away. [caption id="attachment_550540" align="alignnone" width="1830"] Paige Lobdell, executive producer, special projects and events at NewsNation. (Courtesy NewsNation)[/caption] What was your initial reaction upon seeing the commotion? Andrews: I was in my office and immediately jumped from my chair to get a closer look at the screen. I saw the commotion and could not see the former president in the scrum of Secret Service. I grabbed my desk phone and frantically dialed the control room—I told them to just stay on the air and instruct the anchor to let the audience know there had been an incident, and we were watching this play out with everyone else. Then I called my boss at home to tell him something happened—it appeared the former president may have been shot. Lobdell: My first thought was—did that just happen? You realize instantly how significant an event it is and from there, you just switch into "news mode." Your brain kicks into high gear and you begin to mentally list all the things you need to do: "Who can I call to get on the air? How can I get information from the ground? Has anyone else been shot? How serious is this?" We immediately called all of our key reporters, anchors and producers. Many started calling in themselves and we swiftly moved into breaking news mode for the rest of the evening. The key was getting eyewitnesses, Secret Service experts and anyone who could provide the American public with more information on what was happening. Donlon: Uncertainty—we had no idea [what had happened]. I know he raised his fists and everything, but you don’t know if that was just a nervous reaction. Sometimes, people are shot, and they don't realize they're wounded or in a more severe condition until later. We weren't sure what to expect, but right away we started trying to line up the experts to help us walk through it. We had former Secret Service agents on, as well as former ATF agents. We had a reporter on the scene, Alex Miller, and we got her up as soon as possible. We tried to get every ounce of information we could at that time and through the night to provide context for the viewers. Was it chaotic inside the control room? Andrews: Control rooms take on a life of their own when major breaking news happens live on air. Things can get chaotic, but our job is to keep the chaos controlled. Our control room crew always does a great job doing that and they did on Saturday night. Lobdell: There is always a bit of chaos in the control room during breaking news as you make second-by-second decisions about what you are showing on air and the information you relay to the anchor. Producers began securing phone interviews with eyewitnesses, politicians and experts and creating graphics and videos that needed to get on the screen seamlessly. Our team quickly settled in and we had great communication from all our bureaus—including Chicago, Washington D.C. and New York as well as our live shots with reporters on the ground. We were truly proud of our entire team who were able to provide continuous coverage of this historic event. [caption id="attachment_550237" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Brian Donlon, senior director of live news at Scripps News. (Courtesy Scripps News)[/caption] Why did you decide to stay with live images of the shooting and not cut away? Andrews: This was history playing out onscreen. There were a lot of questions in the first few moments of the attack, but one thing was clear right away—there had been some sort of attempt to injure or kill a former president and major party presidential candidate. We owed it to our viewers to stay live on air and give them a front-row seat to what was going on. It was our job to do it responsibly and speak to the audience about what we were learning in real-time as they watched. Lobdell: In such a monumental moment like this one, it’s important for us to show the audience what is happening in real-time as we all try to understand the events that were unfolding around us. Donlon: Listen, the only thing we stayed away from was any pictures or footage of the alleged shooter. Eventually, we got some eyewitnesses on the air, and they sent us some of the videos from their cell phones, which gave us a different angle than the pool shot we were using. So we were able to widen out some of the angles and what people would have seen if they were there with some of that video from people at the rally. That was a big asset that was a big help. [caption id="attachment_550512" align="aligncenter" width="681"] (Courtesy Fox News)[/caption] What time did you get off the air? Andrews: We stayed on the air live all evening and straight through the overnight into the next day. Our regular weekend programming schedule was immediately thrown out. This was a once-in-a-lifetime story for many of us. Lobdell: I made it to the control room at 6:45 p.m. and wound up staying for about six hours, leading our coverage—running on a bag of pretzels and some water. I think my phone died three different times from all the calls, texts and emails. Our hosts and reporters were on the air until close to 1 a.m. I stayed to debrief with the team and figure out the plan for the next day and left closer to 2 a.m. I don’t think the magnitude of the event and the night fully hit me until I got home. I was up for several hours after just trying to wind down from the adrenaline. I texted back and forth with my producer, who helped with the coverage for another hour—and we just kept saying that this was a day that will stick out to us for the rest of our lives. Donlon: We got off at 10 p.m. on Saturday and most had a meeting to plan the next day's coverage. Most of us were at the door by about 11 p.m. and we were all back here at 5:00 a.m. on Sunday.

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A View From the Control Room During the Trump Rally Shooting: 'History Playing out Onscreen''

Mark Mwachiro

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Mark Mwachiro