How the Sausage Is Made

Morbidity aside, it's pretty cool to see how events turn into news coverage here at ABC.

I'm on an internal "Breaking News" distribution list, which means I get dozens of emails from ABC News people whenever something has happened, will happen, or is in the process of happening.

In the case of today's London car bomb plot, I've gotten more than 100 emails since 5 a.m - London bureau people dashing off notes, New York people asking questions, White House correspondents in the process of tracking down officials for comment, and so on. Around 2:45pm, there was discussion on the list about breaking into regularly scheduled programming for a special report. At 2:57, they announced internally that the special report was going to happen. At 2:58:26, Charlie Gibson broke in with a 5 minute report that brought together correspondents from Washington, New York, and London for a cohesive, informative story. Damn impressive. These folks can really kick stuff out when they need to.