MSNBC, CNN and FOX all showed live footage, saying the landlord of the apartment allowed them into the building. Cable networks blasted after showing live footage inside Calif. killers' apartment 'That whole apartment ransacking played to the worst in live media,' New York Times TV critic says.

Cable networks on Friday received swift blowback for broadcasting live footage from inside the apartment of the husband and wife who killed 14 and wounded 21 others in a shooting massacre in San Bernardino, California, on Wednesday.

MSNBC, CNN and Fox all showed live footage, saying the landlord of the apartment allowed them into the building, located in nearby Redlands.


The networks showed someone using a crowbar to pry a wood board off the door frame of the apartment, as journalists crowded around the entryway. MSNBC, which appeared to be first in broadcasting live footage, showed the room of the 6-month-old baby of the attackers, Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook, who were killed in a shootout with police. NBC's Kerry Sanders, going through the apartment with a camera operator and jostling with other media, guided viewers through photos of unidentified people, including children, and documentation, such as a driver's license. At one point, Andrea Mitchell advised Sanders to stop showing footage of photos of children.

MSNBC eventually cut away from the live footage, and CNN then started its own broadcast, with host Anderson Cooper trying to clarify with the on-scene reporter whether police had given explicit permission to enter the apartment.

The landlord, Doyle Miller, told CNN, “This is unreal. And I need to assess the damage. It’s a lot worse than what I thought.” Asked in a different interview why he let in the journalists, the landlord said, “I didn’t. They rushed.” But in other interviews, he appeared to say that he gave permission.

While there were initially some comments from law enforcement officials calling the home “an active crime scene,” David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, indicated authorities were done with the property.

“Once we board it up, anyone who goes in at that point, that’s got nothing to do us,” Bowdich said in a news conference from San Bernardino.

FBI Director James Comey told reporters later on Friday that the media swarm happened after authorities were done with their search and handed over the property. He said he was "neither unhappy nor happy" with what he saw on TV.

A former police chief in Redlands said the media frenzy was understandable and, at this stage, not a problem for the investigation because officials had finished searching the property and released it back to the owner. There’s “probably nothing in terms of impacting the investigation or harming it” that will come from the media footage, said Jim Bueermann, reached on his cellphone shortly after he visited the scene. “There’s so much media interest in this, this was probably a logical consequence or logical event of their releasing the property. They can’t hold the property forever.”

A CNN spokesperson said the network, like many other news organizations, was granted access to the home by the landlord. "We made a conscious editorial decision not to show close-up footage of any material that could be considered sensitive or identifiable, such as photos or ID cards," the statement said.

MSNBC also defended the media's right to be there, but did express regret about some of the objects it showed on live TV. "MSNBC and other news organizations were invited into the home by the landlord after law enforcement officials had finished examining the site and returned control to the landlord. Although MSNBC was not the first crew to enter the home, we did have the first live shots from inside. We regret that we briefly showed images of photographs and identification cards that should not have been aired without review," the network states.

A Fox News representative pointed POLITICO to a tweet from national correspondent Will Carr stating that “the owner of the apartment allowed media inside after police cleared the scene to him.”

Farook and Malik unleashed a deadly shooting attack at a holiday work party on Wednesday of this week. Bowdich said at the news conference on Thursday that authorities are now investigating the attack as an act of terrorism. According to officials, the couple sprayed 65 to 75 rounds of ammunition from four guns — two .223 assault-style rifles and two 9 mm pistols. At their home, police discovered 12 pipe bombs in the garage, in addition to 4,500 rounds in the house.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was being interviewed on MSNBC after the network cut away from the live footage, said he was surprised at the images, remarking that he was “astonished that they're letting people go through the apartment.”

Harry Houck, CNN law enforcement analyst, said on air, “Usually in an instance like this, if crime scene goes in and does the work and comes out, you will keep that scene locked up, and with the sign on board saying that you cannot come in until the police release it. The fact is, maybe they did not do that here. I am I will tell you, I’m so shocked I cannot believe it. This is detective 101 for crying out loud. And now we have what looks like dozens of people in there totally destroying a crime scene, which is still vital in this investigation.”

Other members of the media quickly weighed in on what was unfolding. New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik tweeted, “That whole apartment ransacking played to the worst in live media: OMG WE CAN DO A THING WE HAVE TO DO IT WHAT IF SOMEONE ELSE DOES IT FIRST.”

NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik sent out a series of tweets, kicking off with, “What's playing out on MSNBC and CNN now — with media hordes in home of shooters — is simply astonishing.” He added, “Obviously, the law enforcement authorities who allowed this are the ones who bear responsibility for this circus. Simply bananas,” and “To clarify: journalists are responsible for decision to enter (prob irresistible for most) and what they decide to broadcast/post . ..But if authorities failed to secure unit & landlord let them in (a claim CBS says he has denied) — then I think law officials bear resp here.”

MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry tweeted out, “Corporate ownership has consequences. Wow. Just wow.”

Michael Socolow, a media historian with the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine, said on Twitter that he didn't get “all the pearl-clutching” if police had allowed the media in. “*IF* this is an active crime scene then stunning incompetence in securing it. Don't blame journos if not secured & labelled & invited in,” he said.

In a sign of the level of interest the broadcasts stoked, reporters asked White House press secretary Josh Earnest about it during the daily briefing, to which he responded, “I didn't speak to the president about this. I saw some of the footage on television, but, just watching it like the rest of you.”

After Twitter had exploded with criticism for the live footage, CNN was promoting the footage, tweeting, “CNN @CNN Inside the home of the #SanBernardino killers cnn.it/1jDJlQc.”

MSNBC appeared to be first to show the live footage, with Sanders walking upstairs into a room with a baby’s crib, computer monitor with no CPU, a printer and nothing but a calendar on the wall.

“I want to take a look at the calendar and see what’s marked on the calendar. And I don’t see anything — that’s November,” he said, flipping the page to December. “Just see if anything of importance was marked on the calendar here. And nothing. And it’s just a typical sort of calendar with pictures.”

Sanders then pointed out a prayer rug on the floor, which he speculated could have been “left in the same position it was.” In the closet, Sanders leafed through an Arabic instruction book, which he speculated could have been a gift for the 6-month old or something that Farook might have used to learn the language.

Sanders then goes into bathroom and starts rifling through photos of unidentified people, including children. “I am going to guess that these are the photographs of Malik,” Sanders said of one series of photos. “But we don’t know. We don’t know if it’s her.”

Sanders was then shown flipping through other photographs. “This one was taken in January of ’96,” he said, reading writing on the back of one photograph.

Of another photo, he said it looked like somebody’s 9th birthday. Then Andrea Mitchell broke in, “Let’s make sure we don’t see the children. Let’s not show the child, Kerry. Let’s cut away from that.”

Sarah Wheaton, Nolan McCaskill and Joe Pompeo contributed to this report.