Selected items of interest to the media community
• Rush To Be First To Report Supreme Court Decision Led To Errors
June 30, 2012
In a rush to be first to announce the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act, both CNN and Fox had some early inaccuracies in announcing that the individual mandate was struck down. Analysts and reporters were frantically reporting the decision as they were reading the transcript of the decision. As Jeff Sonderman reports via Poynter:
The Supreme Court announced its ruling on the Affordable Care Act around 10:15 a.m. ET. CNN, which has been suffering in the ratings, and Fox both mistakenly reported that the individual mandate was struck down. Screenshots show the mistake and the subsequent change. Meanwhile, editor David Scott has told journalists at the AP to “stop taunting on social networks” about the mistakes. About 90 minutes after making the errors, CNN issued a correction that says it “regrets that it didn’t wait to report out the full and complete opinion regarding the mandate.” Fox later released a statement about its coverage.
You can read Sonderman's full article on Poynter.org here.