NEW YORK -- In this era of instant news, Africa-hopping President Clinton found out that Paula Jones' sexual harassment case against him had been dismissed at virtually the same time as millions of TV viewers in the U.S. and abroad.
CNN's Bob Franken was the first to break the story, at 4:15:57 p.m. (EST), and according to White House press secretary Mike McCurry, the prez got a call from his lawyer, Bob Bennett, a few minutes after 9 p.m. in Senegal, which is five hours ahead of the East Coast.
Fox News Channel anchor Tony Snow and correspondent David Schuster were talking about the dismissal by 4:16:04 and had Bennett talking about the specifics by 5:03 and Jones' lawyers by 5:39. Fox was also providing the pool camera coverage from Senegal for all the other networks.
"The greatest footage was of Clinton in his hotel room playing the bongos and smoking cigars," a Fox spokesman said.
NBC/MSNBC was milliseconds ahead of CBS (both saying they came in at 4:20). The NBC broadcast and cable offerings featured anchor Tom Brokaw and legal analyst Jack Ford in New York, correspondent Lisa Myers and Tim Russert in Washington, and Claire Shipman in Dakar.
CBS had anchor Dan Rather in New York and correspondent Phil Jones in Washington, according to an "Evening News" spokeswoman.
ABC anchor Peter Jennings went on the air at 4:21 with correspondent Jackie Judd in Washington, and correspondent Sam Donaldson (who could be heard prominently in all footage coming from the McCurry press conference) in Dakar.
Of all the U.S. nets, only CNN Intl. (available in 210 countries and 113 million homes) can be seen in Senegal. And according to CNN spokesman Steve Haworth, the entire White House press corps (traveling with the prez) were seen huddled around TV monitors showing CNNI's coverage of the story.
"It was either CNNI, or local Senegal TV -- guess what those reporters and administration officials over there were watching," Haworth told Daily Variety.
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