CNN Apologizes for Misreporting Health Care Ruling

Fox News also briefly said individual mandate was found unconstitutional

By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/28/2012 12:33:15 PM

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."


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.