Who was that person? (Their SCOTUS correspondent)

I seldom watch CNN so I don't know

...and he communicated the false news to the young on-air correspondent outside the court. She's one of America's Most Beautiful, apparently. She reported the IM was struck down and attributed that news to producer Bill Mears.

Their words - not mine

but in all fairness the first few word of the decision did sound as if it was overturned.

IMHO the problem is the need to be first syndrome. Even for those that got it right from the beginning they were full of confusion because they were reading the decision as it was being reported. I think this decision was so important there should have been a 1hour delay between the decision being given out and it being reported.

That said, if anyone is going to screw up on national TV I can't think of two networks I would rather see it happen to than FOX and CNN(Foxlite).

It just means to me that CNN is as eager as FOX to tell any story that will seemingly hurt the President.

I think they stopped reading once they "thought" they knew the decision because the "knew" it couldn't be constitutional after all Hannity, O'Reily, Palin, Limbaugh, Beck said it wasn't.

When you read the syllabus of the decision (a summary written for convenience and not part of the actual opinion), it goes through all the various holdings, summing them up in just a few pages. The first one says that Roberts held the mandate is not constitutional under the Commerce Clause. So someone saw that and jumped the gun. When you read on, though, a page or two later it says that Roberts says it IS constitutional under the tax power. So it's a case of trying to get it first, but failing to get it right by reading the whole summary.

.... I was viewing the CNN website, refreshing every minute or so because I knew the ruling was imminent. When the banner saying "mandate overruled" came up, I was disappointed but not at all surprised.

Then I went to one of my favorite financial sites. On THEIR main page, it said "ACA upheld by the court".

At this point I was pretty confused. It took CNN around 10 minutes to taking down that banner.

Frankly, I can see how they made the mistake. Not much of an excuse, but an explanation. However, they should have been able to correct themselves in a couple minutes at most, everyone else had the correct report up for a long time before they did. There is really no excuse for that.

I stayed up all night and finally went to bed believing Gore won.

Imagine my waking nightmare ever since!

If you notice, MSNBC and Current got it right, as did Democracy Now. I was going between NPR and Democracy Now on the radio driving to work yesterday, and DN first said SCOTUSblog was reporting that the mandate was upheld. Then 1/2 a minute later there was a mention that CNN was saying it was struck down, but Amy Goodman held fast that their source at SCOTUSblog was holding to their first (correct) report that it had been upheld as a tax. I turned to NPR (Diane Rehm) and she was saying that CNN was reporting it was struck down and initiated a conversation about the mandate going down in defeat. John King at CNN was saying that it was a "direct body blow to the President!" It was a clusterf*** of misinformation and a HUGE black-eye for CNN and Fox. Now only did they lead their viewers astray, but all the news sources who piggy-backed onto CNN and Fox for reporting the results, were broadcasting the erroneous report. It was shamefully bad.

put the SCOTUSBlog website up on the screen and let the bloggers "explain" (in a running live blog session) the ruling as it was being read and as they were reading it.

Meanwhile the CNN hacks launched into a familiar (and apparently highly rehearsed) diatribe about how this was "a blow to the administration". "A blow to the Democrats". "A blow to Obama", "will affect the election chances", "a win for conservatives and the GOP", and other such fiction.

Finally almost 10 minutes later, after having Gupta join in about how devastating this was, someone was apparently yelling in Blitzer's ear until he stopped his orgasmic hatefest, and he started mumbling about "confusion" and "may have been upheld". Meanwhile the website refused to change their banner headline and story.

Nothing can be said good about them. They went in with preconceived outcomes and spat that out regardless of the reality of what had happened.

at all on their part, that they knew what they were doing and were doing exactly as intended. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if that were the case, especially where Blitzer is concerned.

They took an obvious loser like bush and got him appointed president with no nationwide revolt by claiming "sore loser" and calling their guy the winner before the votes were counted. They probably thought they could do the same thing with this decision from the Supremes.

They thought if they said the opposite of what was actually decided, they could convince people that the decision was what FOX and CNN wanted. Actually there is precedent for this in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886). Where a clerk reporter wrote a head note that was NOT what the court ruled, yet most everyone used that head note as if it were true.

So Fox and CNN were just trying to get everyone to believe something that was NOT true. But, this time, it didn't work.

You mean they wanted to be embarrassed and humiliated?

Really, I don't get it, what's the upside for them of getting it wrong?

got to make their RW talking points for ten minutes and get them out and circulating, which is obviously what they were so anxious to do. Blitzer in particular.

I remember, right after Katrina, when he was in NO and was covering the levee breach. He was interviewing an Army Corps of Engineers higher-up who was trying to explain that changed and reduced funding had hampered their maintenance efforts throughout the country. Blitzer didn't miss a beat and, not batting an eye, quickly asked "so, who's to blame for this, Clinton?" It was as if he couldn't wait to get that dig out there and was desperate to deflect any blame at all from Dubya. Which was likely the case.

In all fairness, they should have understood the decision before announcing it. It's key to the fucking job. No excuses.

Skip to the 3 minute mark!

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/colbert-cable-news-supreme-court.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

Thanks for sharing.

Good old wolfied and the the other regular twit, could not say in enough ways how badly this hurt the president.

Funny thing is, it took all of a few minutes for the "liberal" media to adapt from wanting it to be overturned to slam the President to finding 100 different ways why it not getting overturned was bad news for the president.

In fact, CNNs "coverage" of this should be the textbook example of the fallacy of the "liberal media."

They get ahead of the story and scream over how it getting overturned destroys the President, THEN, when they get up to speed about it NOT being overturned it was ... BAD NEWS for the President.

And now they have egg on their faces. No sympathy from me.

“We had a chance to cover it right. And some people in here don’t get what a big deal getting it wrong is. Morons.”

I was a copy editor for 35 outdoors magazines up until 2010. Then the company eliminated jobs of which mine was one of them.

They aren't interested in reporting the news.

Their goal is to convince the lunatic fringe that they aren't part of the liberal media (whoever the fuck they are.

I'm sure the guy who originated this report was under orders from management to jump on any hint that the dreaded Obamacare would be killed. And I'm equally sure that the CNN suits were having orgasms over the bogus report that they put out ("Those Fox viewers will really be impressed with us now!&quot .

CNN has become a parody of a news organization.

Haven't watched them in ages and I am SO glad since I would have been unnecessarily heartsick yesterday if I had been watching their channel. I immediately would have turned it off and gone outside. I probably wouldn't have known the truth until much much later.

Parody, indeed! Fuck CNN.

I do not understand how people are surprised by this. To me CNN has been embarrassing since at least 2002. It's good for celebrity deaths, but that is all.

The "Conservative News Network: We'll Make the News Right, Even If It's Wrong"

important breaking news around the world.

I should've used past tense, however.

to the President. The pig Blitzer was about as bad as King.

for most of americans. I would love to see the youtube of it - i'll have to hunt around later.

lousy ugly fucketers

they SO wanted it oveturned, and Blitzer and King could not find enough ways to scream how damaging it was to the President.

THEN, when they figured out they were wrong, somehow, it was STILL bad news for the president that it was not overturned.

Yes, the "liberal media."

Jackasses.

when I watched CNN I could tell he could barely conceal the contempt he felt for some of his stupid colleages.

Tooban, Lemon and Soladad O'Brien are the only 3 in that whole lot that are worth anything.

SCOTUS released the result in the form of a short story in which they give the decision on the last page of report that is about 100 pages long. The SCOTUS should give us the decision in the title or first sentence of the report. Then, use the remaining volume to tell us why. Enough of the decision reports that read like murder mysteries. If they are too inflexible to do that, then they should release a 1-page executive summary before releasing the murder mystery.

including the majority and minority opinions.

You did not have to wait until the last page to know the decision. Every SC decision, including this one, has a short summary at the beginning. The summary on this one was about 2 pages. The problem arose because the summary (which is not written by the justices but by clerks) started to go through the case issue by issue. The first issue was whether the mandate was constitutional under the Commerce Clause (which is what Congress used to pass the law). The court held 7-2 that it was not constitutional. But then Roberts said the mandate could survive as a tax. That position passed 5-4.

So some of the news people read the very first part of the summary and rushed to the air before reading the next section.

Read the whole ruling. The more progressive justices all said it was ok both under the commerce clause and the necessary and proper clause in addition to the taxation powers. Roberts said it was ok only under the taxation authority.

This law was clearly legal under all three theories. Under the commerce clause, Roberts and the other conservative justices said that it was not constitutional because it impelled commerce instead of regulating already-existing commerce. The more liberal justices said that under the commerce clause it was certainly constitutional because the healthcare market is very unique in that everyone, whether or not they have insurance, IS in this interstate market because anyone may need healthcare at any moment and everyone will absolutely need it at some point. It is not discretionary. And when someone doesn't have insurance but needs medical care, they will get it at emergency rooms which jacks up everyone else's premiums thus affecting interstate commerce given that many health plans are national plans, many people need healthcare when in other states, many go to other states for it, and the medications covered by insurance are an interstate market. They are exactly right. The healthcare market is unique and everyone is certainly a part of it whether or not they have insurnance.

Everyone needs food. So under your theory the government could force you to buy certain foods because they are "more healthy". Basically they could force you to buy anything from third party sources with that theory.

Read the entire ruling and you will see how the 4 reasoned justices addressed that concern through explaining how the healthcare market is unique. I agree with Breyer, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Kagen. Go to the Supreme Court website, and click on the ruling. Then page down to Ginsburg's written opinion.

...Nor should they have to.

The decision IS written on the first couple pages of the hardly-lengthy syllabus. It says "Affirmed in Part and Reversed in Part". The next 5 or so pages explain which parts were affirmed and which parts were reversed. Instead of requiring SCOTUS to change the long-held way that they write decisions (which took a considerable amount of time and energy to coordinate and produce) I would think that maybe the associates at the respective "news" agencies could take 5 minutes to read the damned thing before making a mad sprint to the Newsroom chair so they can yell "FIRST" like some 17 year-old Reddit commenter.

without thoroughly investigating your facts before you do so.

But the operative word there is 'journalists'.

'news' just blurted it out like cheap loudmouthed barkers at a circus. They are not "journalists", especially that slob John King.

to render their decisions in soundbites palatable to ADD cable news viewers.

But thanks for the slimy insensitivity.

Heaven forbid they would have to read a few pages of text.

I can't remember the last time that I've watched it.

Not holding my breath on that, but I try to remain optimistic.

of the premier episode of The Newsroom?

There is also this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002867678
which preceded the CNN/FAUX fiasco by an hour.

I am calling the Todd one "The Newsroom Effect". I hope it catches on.

Not that CNN got it wrong ... that's not really surprising. The "fun" part of it is that even the lowly staffers know that CNN is up fucked and back asswards.

that was a long fucking time ago

while Baghdad was being shocked and awed live and direct.

He thought that he was being bombed and dived under the table, then poked his head back up holding some sort of a tin pot over himself for protection. It was hilarious. The only funny thing that happened in either "war".

I think he was in Riyadh (I still have a tape of that mess) when Saddam was lobbing scuds that way.

The media is no longer interested in telling the story, all they want is the hype and to be able to claim they were the first to tell you their commentary on anything.

CNN has hit rock bottom. The question is can they pull themselves up off the same floor where they lie with FOX or are they going to wallow in the same slop?

Putting up a website banner incorrectly, and making an initial incorrect call is almost defensible. But in conjunction with King and Wolfie reporting with glee that it was a HUGE blow to the President and Democrats and then never following up with an equally huge blow to Republicans, is one of the best example of bias.

They should fire Wolfie and John King.

was reading the ruling like Fake news person was doing and they both mis-interpreted it. Instead of reading thru it first they took certain words from the body of the written ruling and ran with it. This is not journalism, and thats the problem with many of the news outlets both cable and regular.

Corporate media was certain that the US Supreme Court was going to destroy ACA that they automatically assumed it.

"The 29-year-old (Kate Bolduan) was also named one of Washington's 50 Most Beautiful people in 2011 by The Hill."

That has to be worth something, doesn't it?

It's not her fault in any way, and for anyone to blame it on her looks or inexperience is absurd.


rocktivity

Last edited Fri Jun 29, 2012, 06:11 PM - Edit history (1)

Well, there ya have it! Stephan Colbert last night reading from Steinbeck.

"It was the best of times" is the first part of the opening sentence of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities:

[font color = "blue"]It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

their desire to be as irresponsible as FOX, then it will have a good effect.

You must study a court decision before knowing it's meaning. With the USSC, however, you can usually see who has joined the the winning side and know what to expect as a result. Having seen four moderates on the winning side, they should have known it was likely to uphold the mandate and been careful.

nt

I saw a screen shot of their misfired premature reportage, which
was similar to CNN's.

I just thing FOX should get their fair share of the blame.

that FOX cares about truth, integrity, etc.

they want to be true and not have any real journalists ...... oh wait.

Corporate News hasn't been on in my house in at least five years, and guess what? I didn't miss a damn thing.

If you were a staffer there and thought it would be a prestigious point on your resume, you'd probably be angry, too.

But I have no sympathy for those who sold out for "access".

They certainly had their news readers and talking heads repeating the same line as soon as the story broke. It took them a very long time to correct their reporting.

was their sickening GLEE in reporting damage to the president.

Years from now there will still be people claiming the SC tossed the mandate

and was just following a script written much earlier.

I don't watch any of them any more. Can't trust a word they say is true. It's all twisted to be either pro-GOP (usually) or ultra-sensational to keep viewers. All bullshit. The weather is even over-the-top. Every little rain storm or bit of wind is going to turn into a hurricane or tornado. People have to rely on their own instincts. Cable news sucks. And so do the shows and their constant reruns. The fatcats just keep stuffing their pockets while the poor, dumb American public watches the nonsense. I'm ready to get rid of the whole damn thing. Next will be internet as the interference becomes worse and worse. A bill has been passed to allow the government to legally use propaganda on us. I can't wait for the underground to begin to give us the real news in a new way. And if Romney steals the election, forget it people, get ready to start really suffering. Even if it's just $1. give to the Obama campaign. At least he cares a little about the other 99% of us. Thanks for listening.

(give them something to aspire to)

nt

who cares.

Stop trying to rack up points with other news media and politicians and corporate sponsors and tell the truth.

Worry less about equal time for right and left and report the facts without all that commentary.

Let us on the internet blogs comment. You report facts. Everyone will love you for that.

In the end, you will win the trust of Americans. That's what you want to do.

In the '60s, the slogan was, "Never trust anyone over 30." Now it is "Never trust anyone in the news media."

Except maybe Al-Jazeera or The Guardian.

Al Jazeera, The Guardian, BBC. In reverse order these are news outlets that I trust highly. But you cannot trust these sources 100%. They do get it wrong. Sometimes though they get it right and the government manages to force a cover up - do a Wikipedia search on the "September Dossier for" an example. But again, just always check the sources.

IMO CNN was more credible a good few years ago. Some of their credibility has been lost. CNN International is IMO more credible than CNN domestic, basically because CNNI see their competition as being BBC World News, Al Jazeera, etc... and not MSNBC and Fox News. Watch their non US output and see the difference. It's like comparing night and day in some cases.

I'm glad CNN are going to review their mistake, especially since this mistake wasn't limited to the domestic CNN, it was a global event. A mistake on Fox News stays generally on Fox News... we know what Fox News is and what it stands for. However a mistake like this by CNN is not as forgivable because CNN International has a far bigger potential audience (and most likely bigger audience anyway) than CNN Domestic and CNN International is so *not* Fox "News", especially not Fox "News" "International".

Their format is so short sighted - they are never going to get the rabid Fox viewers and they are never going to be able to compete ratings-wise with the crap they have on right now. What CNN needs to do is make themselves the 'facts only' channel. I'm not saying let one person who says 2+2=4 and the other person who insists 2+2=5 have a go and call it 'even'. That's bullshit lazy crap. No one goes to the game to watch the referee. And people see through it. The viewers that watch CNN are somewhat exponentially more intelligent and sophisticated than your average Fox viewer. They are tired of the false equivalency shit. Do some journalism. Look for hard hitting facts. Don't make it some 30 second little 'keeping them honest' blurb. Make it your whole fucking line up. And don't say, "both sides do it". Tell us how MUCH both sides do it. If the split is 20-80 THAT MATTERS. Report on it! Be journalists for once in your goddamn lives.

shit.

This F*ck-up demonstrates exactly why the mainstream media is losing trust daily.

but CNN, I've always figured that CNN had a slight ( whispered... conservative leaning), but today it was there for all of US to see.

That's why I've not watched nor has depended on CNN Cable News, for my news source in years..., I figure out years ago that CNN was NOT as "fair and balanced" as it should have been.

Today I've vindicated myself, as I've stated-"I've not watched nor has depended on CNN Cable News, for my news source in years...,"

I'm thinking MIHOP here. No proof, just a long record of lies and distortions, and "accidental" misstatements. Along with Fox, of course. That's the liberal media for ya.

Not an intentional mistake. They were just desperate to get the story first.

these veteran journalists have watched their network slide down the toilet for all these years...I almost feel bad for them

jes a nano-second, perhaps...but it was close.

then it went to crap.

why it was called by the right the Clinton News Network...

They hated, yes HATED, CNN for actually reporting facts during the Lewinsky scandal, and during the first gulf war they were simply amazing.

Hell, I had a couple occasions two work with their correspondents, professional, great, and yes listened to us and did not go on air with exclusive until exclusive was safe... for that I will be forever grateful to them.

Then something happened to them after Turner sold them... it became infotainment, and trying to get the conservative demographic, which FOX locked up after 1996... so on to FOX light they went... downhill ever since.

I think I turned to them during Katrina, only because they still did disaster news fairly decently.

Being a corporate owned network with many tentacles some of them might be stuck in the healthcare insurance industry pie. If that is the case they may have a fiduciary responsibility to not report news that could harm shareholders or even to do the best they can to skew news in favor of the corporations they are subsidiaries of. Not that would ever happen of course. We all know TV news always looks out for the little guy. Corporate profits be damned.