The news helicopter was invented in Los Angeles in 1958. KTLA chief engineer John Silva later said he didn’t think he was pioneering anything: “All I ever wanted to do was get us there and get the picture — before the competition got it.”

Thanks to Silva’s “Telecopter,” news choppers became part of the city’s fabric, showing Angelenos ordinary traffic jams, extraordinary wildfires and everything in between.

The competition is intense, yes, but there’s also real camaraderie off-air. The reporters all know each other. The pilots look out for one another. And that’s why the entire L.A. TV community is in mourning right now.

Last night’s NewsChopper 4 crash killed pilot George Marciniw, NBC L.A. reporter Eliana Moreno and a pedestrian in a parking lot on the ground.

Some of the city’s other news chopper teams may have seen it happen. The news crews were hovering over Chatsworth, covering a deadly rush hour bus crash that also left three people dead.

“The fatal accident shook the media community in a city where extensive and competitive aerial coverage of news stories is a ubiquitous part of the local TV landscape,” Andy Rose wrote in CNN’s story, co-bylined with Karina Tsui.

Reporters on the scene of the crash broke down in tears. Counterparts from other stations shared fond memories of Moreno and Marciniw. Anchors talked about the preciousness of life, and how everything can change in a second.

“Though rare, at least 16 people have died in news helicopter crashes in the United States since 2000,” KTLA noted in this look back at past crashes.

Last night was distinct in some ways because L.A. stations were already busy covering the bus crash when the chopper went down.

NBC4 reporter Robert Kovacik was standing in front of the bus at 7:01 p.m. when the anchor interrupted and told him to head toward the smoke plume nearby. The urgency — “move in that direction immediately” — betrayed the fear back at the station.

I don’t know the details yet, but someone at NBC4 knew something was wrong with NewsChopper 4 because Moreno was transmitting live video just before the chopper crashed. Watching the video later, CNN’s aviation correspondent Pete Muntean said he could hear sounds of the engine losing power and a warning alarm in the cockpit.

At 7:00, KTLA started showing video from its own chopper of the crash site, just as the first rescuers arrived and dragged a body away from the fire. In the News4 control room, that must have been a gut-wrenching thing to see.

So Kovacik was told to hurry over, and while he did that, the anchors very candidly asked the audience for patience as they checked the Citizen app and scrolled their phones for any possible info. TheDesk posted video on X of NBC4’s first seven minutes of coverage, which is about as raw as you’ll ever see on live TV.

Once Kovacik arrived, eyewitnesses told him it was a TV chopper crash, confirming the control room’s fears. Anchor Colleen Williams disclosed that the station had lost “contact” with NewsChopper 4. But Williams and others on air tried not to get ahead of what they knew for sure, which was very little. They admirably filled hours of air time until the official word came in about the fatalities. The L.A. Times wrote about the station’s coverage in more detail here.

NBC4’s live broadcast reminded me in some ways of the day two WDBJ journalists were gunned down during a live interview in Virginia. In both cases, the tragedy was partially captured on camera, and the station was at the center of the news for the worst possible reason.

“Here at NBC4, our hearts are broken,” anchor Annabelle Sedano said on air last night, paying tribute to Moreno’s bilingual broadcasts of “everything from high-speed pursuits to wildfires.”

“She was impressive, with a great knowledge of the inner workings of law enforcement… On the anchor desk, we knew we could ask her anything,” Sedano said.

The pilot, Marciniw, was “well known and respected in the industry,” she said. “He loved his job and often said he loved working with Eliana.”

The victim on the ground has yet to be identified, but NBC’s Adela Suliman profiled both the known victims here.

I appreciated what NBC4 A.M. co-anchor Lynette Romero said on the “Today” show this morning: “Our viewers are grieving, too. They lost somebody… When you have that voice of a news chopper reporter in your ear, it’s a very intimate relationship. They’re telling you exactly what they’re seeing, and you can hear it in their voice. She was so good at that.”

As Jessica Yellin wrote on Instagram, this tragedy is “a reminder of the risks journalists sometimes take simply to show us what is happening.”

Now we’re taking a sharp turn to other news…

Question: If CBS hadn’t fired half a dozen “60 Minutes” veterans and very publicly shook up the show, would Sunday’s ratings have been higher, lower, or pretty much the same?

We’ll never know. Bari Weiss went ahead with a highly publicized revamp of “60,” which could have, in theory, drawn lots of newly curious eyeballs. In reality, the ratings plunged, leading some to conclude that Weiss alienated a greater number of viewers than she attracted.

I analyzed the #s for CNN here. The story is full of “buts” because the ratings picture is complicated:

The newsmag put out a strong episode on Sunday night. But some people shunned the show due to the firings and (disputed) charges of political interference.

“60” viewership fell about 20% versus last year’s season premiere. But the NFL match-up that preceded “60” also declined about 20%.

“60” slipped below the 10-million-viewer mark on season premiere night for the first time since 2020. But Nielsen methodology changes are impacting the whole industry.

Bottom line: CBS wanted bigger numbers and dreaded the bad press about “60” having “its worst ratings in more than 25 years.”

For the time being, the network has succeeded in getting people to talk about “60 Minutes,” but getting more of them to watch is proving much harder.

Credit where it’s due: CBS News continues to publish scoops and stories that totally fly in the face of the “MAGA-coded” narrative about the news division. Here are three emblematic headlines from just the past day:

>> “New photos show widespread damage at U.S. positions caused by Iranian missile, drone attacks.” Jonah Kaplan said he received the exclusive imagery from “active service members on condition of anonymity because of rigid media restrictions within the military.” One of the sources told him, “This is major damage to our bases that hasn’t been communicated to the American public. We’re standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face.”

>> “Latin American migrants deported by ICE to West Africa describe being stranded ‘on the other side of the world.’” Camilo Montoya-Galvez “tracked down the deportees in Liberia,” and his story says CBS is “the first U.S. television network to speak to them in person.”

>> “Ukraine’s Zelenskyy tells CBS News Russia tried to attack his plane with drones twice in recent weeks.” Aidan Stretch taped the interview yesterday.

Trump’s Justice Department is siding with Paramount in its push to make the 12 states challenging its Warner Bros. Discovery merger post a $1.88 billion bond to cover its losses from the delay, THR’s Winston Cho reports. “The bond requirement forces parties to have skin in the game,” the DOJ argues in the filing, further noting how the DOJ’s own review of the merger found no risks to competition and approved the deal.

“One potentially thorny issue for Paramount,” Cho points out: “The states have argued that the court never technically issued an injunction, which would render Paramount ineligible for a bond, since the studio voluntarily agreed not to close the deal under a joint stipulation.” Paramount has pushed back on that…

A bold deal announced this morning: The former “Hard Fork” hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton “are bringing their newest venture, ‘Machine Gods,’ to NPR.” The video-first show “will run twice weekly on NPR podcast feeds and give public media audiences access to the leaders actively shaping the future of technology, in conversations across audio and video platforms,” NPR