Somebody call a doctor, the folks at CNN must be having a heart attack after they goofed and declared Obamacare was dead.
The red-faced cable channel had to quickly post a correction, but it was too late. The social media cat, so to speak, was out of the bag and the embarrassing error was whipping around the web. As the nation now knows, the U.S. Supreme Court actually upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare today.
The digs came fast and furious for the cable channel. “CNN breaking John McCain wins 2008 election,” joked one observer on Twitter.
CNN first reported in a banner on their website: “The Supreme Court has struck down the individual mandate for health care.” Whoops.
The correction read: “Correction: The Supreme Court backs all parts of President Obama’s signature health care law.”
The fast-fingered flub is being called a “Dewey Defeats Truman moment.” It gets worse for CNN as the error is being compounded by re-tweets. “Not Twitter’s finest moment here,” a wise poster summed up.
It all came down at about 10 a.m. today when the court upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare, the controversial health care reform program, in a blockbuster decision.
Chief Justice John Roberts acted as the swing vote, joining the liberal justices on the court to save the signature achievement of the Obama Administration. Stay tuned. This will heat up the web all day.
Fox News wasn’t much better, initially reporting in its live TV broadcast that the mandate had been overturned.
Later this morning, the Associated Press ordered their staff to “stop taunting” about the mistake.
Per Romenesko, Region Editor/Central U.S. David Scott said it’s “not the impression we want to reflect as an organization. Let our reporting take the lead.”
Scott’s email to staff:
From: Scott, David T.
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 20129:51 AM
To: News – Central Editorial Staff
Subject: Twitter/Health Care
Importance: High
All,
Please, immediately, stop taunting on social networks about CNN and others’ SCOTUS ruling mistake and the AP getting it right.
That’s not the impression we want to reflect as an organization. Let our reporting take the lead.
Best,
David
—–
David Scott
Region Editor/Central U.S.
The Associated Press
(Source: Boston Herald / Mediate)
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2 Responses
CNN was right that the Court ruled that the mandate was not a valid exercise of the Interstate Commerce power. They missed at first that the Court decided to call 0bama a liar by maintaining that he had increased taxes despite his swearing up and down that he wouldn’t do that and hadn’t done that.
Actually Fox botched the results as well, so much for your media bias
Moderators Note: YWN actually wrote that. So much for YOUR bias…..