SCOTUSblog's Tom Goldstein has written a gripping second-by-second breakdown of how the media handled the Obamacare ruling, including many details behind CNN and Fox News' epic fail:
Into his conference call, the CNN producer says (correctly) that the Court has held that the individual mandate cannot be sustained under the Commerce Clause, and (incorrectly) that it therefore "looks like" the mandate has been struck down. The control room asks whether they can "go with" it, and after a pause, he says yes. The Fox producer reads the syllabus exactly the same way, and reports that the mandate has been invalidated. Asked to confirm that the mandate has been struck down, he responds: "100%."
SCOTUSblog couldn't get press credentials to the event, but one team member got in through another news organization. They ended up with 1.7 million readers, including many at the White House, and got the decision right by thinking ahead and taking it slow:
The day before, I told our team that I did not want us to get it wrong if "the opinion does something really weird, with one paragraph saying that the government loses under the Commerce Clause, but then" upholds it on another ground. The morning of the decision, Mark Sherman of the Associated Press (justifiably) teased me about a Washington Post article in which I had (stupidly) said that I expected us to be faster than AP. I told him: "We’re not racing you"; in a decision this long and complicated, "no one will remember if you move this story first or we do," but the "only thing anyone will ever remember is if we f*** it up."
(Hat tip: Jay Rosen)
The Dish 