NBC News is patting itself on the back for pre-empting a pair of My Name Is Earl reruns for a 10 pm Dateline special on the Virginia Tech shootings (but they'd do the same for Anna Nicole-- and who'd be watching after Thank God You're Here, anyway?). But aside from that gesture, the worst mass killing in United States history-- surely the biggest news story of 2007-- wasn't deemed important enough to cut into network prime time programming last night.
Today though, the massacre at Virginia Tech has led to a programming change at Fox.
Because of the killings, Fox has pulled an original episode of Bones, in which a college basketball player is found dead on campus, that was set to run tomorrow night.
They'll replace the episode with a rerun.
But they won't be replacing tonight's episode of The Shield on Fx, which is said to be "the goriest yet." And the last time we checked, Fox News was still allowing Geraldo Rivera to ply his theatrics in Virginia.