AP to Staffers: Quit Making Fun of CNN and Fox for Getting Obamacare Ruling Wrong
In the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court's highly anticipated ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, every news organization in America nearly trampled over one another in an effort to be the first to report the story.
Unfortunately, in the rush to figure out the decision, CNN got it wrong. Very wrong. (So did Fox News, by the way.)
The news network issued a correction minutes later, and apologized for not waiting "to report out the full and complete opinion regarding the mandate," but the retraction was too late for some: Many Republican lawmakers, taking their cue from CNN, tweeted with glee that the mandate had been struck down.
One of the more prominent gloaters was the Associated Press, which had been flaunting its successful reading of the ruling in CNN's face. The playground behavior was apparently too much for AP editor David Scott, who sent an email blast to staffers asking that the they "please, immediately, stop taunting on social networks about CNN and others' SCOTUS ruling mistake and the AP getting it right."
He added: "That's not the impression we want to reflect as an organization. Let our reporting take the lead."
For all its braggadocio, the AP wasn't the first news organization to report the ruling: That honor falls to Bloomberg News, which beat the AP by 24 whole seconds.
