In the rush to report the Supreme Court's decision on the
Affordable Care Act Thursday morning, both CNN and Fox News initially
incorrectly reported that the court had struck down the individual mandate
portion of the law.
CNN apologized for the error in a statement Thursday:
"In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts initially said
that the individual mandate was not a valid exercise of Congressional power under
the Commerce Clause. CNN reported that fact, but then wrongly reported
that therefore the court struck down the mandate as unconstitutional. However,
that was not the whole of the Court's ruling. CNN regrets that it didn't
wait to report out the full and complete opinion regarding the mandate. We
made a correction within a few minutes and apologize for the error."
A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately respond to
request for comment.
CNN first reported that the individual mandate was found
unconstitutional at 10:07 a.m., before Wolf Blitzer later backtracked at 10:11
a.m., saying that the network was now receiving conflicting reports. CNN later
corrected the error at 10:14 a.m., when it said that health care law was in fact
upheld.
Fox News also reported the court ruled the individual mandate
unconstitutional at 10:07 a.m., according to TVNewser,
though at 10:09, Megyn Kelly said they were getting conflicting information.
Unlike Fox news, CNN's misreporting extended to its Twitter stream, which can
be seen below and in a blog post here.
