Fox News was so eager to see the healthcare mandate fail they forgot to read past the 1st page of the ruling twitter.com/jasonkeath/sta…
— Jason Keath (@jasonkeath) June 28, 2012
On the morning that the Supreme Court handed down its decision on Obamacare, for 9 minutes CNN incorrectly reported that Obamacare had been deemed unconstitutional. FOX also momentarily made the same error.
Out of all the seconds of that morning, this moment is the most fascinating:
Television executives in CNN control rooms glance up at monitors carrying their competitors to see Fox’s banner, which confirms that the mandate has been struck down. The same thing happens in reverse at Fox News in Washington. In the critical early moments, the two networks’ errors reinforce each other.
Long before this fateful episode I had come to believe that CNN is really a lite version of FOX. My assumption is only reinforced.
The echo chamber moment came from Craig Silverman over at Poynter.org. He got it from a deliciously detailed description of the moments between 10:06AM and 10:15AM on June 28, 2012 – the time between which the Supreme Court released its opinion and CNN corrected itself and announced that the mandate had been upheld.
To see it in full, see We’re getting wildly differing assessments at SCOTUSblog. Author Tom Goldstein says, “Everything is based on interviews with those directly involved; nothing is second hand.”
If you’d prefer the abbreviated version, read Craig Silverman’s piece at Poynter.
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