Pat Kiernan, the morning anchor for NY1 News, couldn't suppress a smile as he described "nightmare" commuting conditions in Jamaica, Queens. On NBC, Katie Couric and David Gregory, the guest co-host, opened the "Today" show in stitches, laughing that Santa's sleigh might not get past the city's rigid carpooling restrictions. And when WABC's local "Eyewitness News" pre-empted "Good Morning America" for a second day of live coverage, the morning anchors Steve Bertelstein and Lori Stokes looked as if they were blissed out on hash brownies.

Newscasters had every reason to look happy about New York's first transit strike in 25 years. When most viewers see masses of people walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, they think of Sept. 11. And the last time regular programming was interrupted so often with news bulletins was for Hurricane Katrina.

For television, this transit strike is a G-rated disaster: full crisis coverage without death or destruction, just inconvenience.

News choppers lovingly hovered over stalled traffic on the Queensboro Bridge while on-the-scene reporters hunted for stranded commuters they could assist. On Tuesday morning, a Fox 5 news team joyfully stumbled on a young woman in labor stalled in traffic on her way to the hospital. A Fox promo made the most of the incident, urging viewers to "see how a Fox Five crew helped her out." (The crew alerted a police officer.) The pregnant woman looked a little less thrilled by the moment. When the reporter asked her if she was expecting her first child, she replied, "And my last."

Back in warm television studios, sipping coffee at their desks, local anchors debated headgear, natural-fiber socks and the exact wind-chill factor as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, followed by hundreds of pedestrian commuters, crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot in a leather bomber jacket and jeans. (Rebel without a limousine.)

Inevitably, reporters and commentators lapsed into OnlyinNewYorkSpeak, shaking their heads in wonder at the can-do spirit of people who walked or shared rides to work. A former deputy mayor, Randy M. Mastro, said that "New Yorkers are the most resilient people on the planet" - as if the inhabitants of Minneapolis or Brussels routinely panic during strikes and fall to pieces. And actually, by Day 2 of the strike, a civilian meltdown or two might have provided better television images; there are only so many times you can show a subway entrance closed with yellow police tape or helicopter shots of stalled highway traffic. A grown man throwing his packages to the ground in front of Macy's and howling in rage and pain would have been refreshing.

All stations seized the chance to flaunt their public-service efforts. WCBS-TV, the local CBS station, sent a doctor to the Brooklyn Bridge to give free advice about health risks related to the strike. Dr. Sapna Parikh, a WCBS medical reporter, interviewed Red Cross volunteers who were administering coffee and hot chocolate to long-distance walkers, and also gave some advice to viewers: "Wear comfortable shoes."

And each station packaged its strike stories under banner graphics. WABC's "Eyewitness News" blared "Special Report: The Transit Strike." Fox 5 News, which is part of the Rupert Murdoch news empire, preferred to label it "Illegal Transit Strike."

NY1 handled the strike the way Depression-era contestants competed in dance marathons: exhaustively. NY1's production values are not as fancy as those of most local stations. (Mostly, the cable channel illustrated traffic with a city map dotted with tiny police cars marking the checkpoints.) But it made up for it in nonstop discussion of every possible angle, though by late Tuesday, even the channel's anchors were stretching to make a point. A headline for a business update announced that the strike "Failed to Cripple Wall Street."

The president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, Roger Toussaint, was all over the news, but his union also placed some ads on NY1 to placate viewers. "I never wanted this," a transit worker addresses the camera in a commercial. "But the M.T.A. left me no choice."

New Yorkers reacted as only New Yorkers can: awestruck by their own determination. Foreign visitors were underwhelmed. "It's always like this in Paris," a pretty young Frenchwoman told a local news team. "It's normal, for me."