CNN Botches Supreme Court Health Care Ruling, Surprising No One

Culture

Fresh off a report that CNN’s ratings had dropped to their lowest in 21 years, “The Most Trusted Name in News” celebrated by immediately botching its coverage of the most highly anticipated Supreme Court decision in recent memory. 

Upon the court’s release of its decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, CNN promptly reported that the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act had been ruled unconstitutional:

So CNN hears that the court rejects the individual mandate as a valid exercise of the Commerce Clause, and immediately assumes that the measure had been struck down. A casual news watcher might be forgiven for jumping to such a haphazard conclusion, but CNN is technically a news organization, and has had this issue under a microscope for a long time. One would think that during its thousands of hours of coverage on the Affordable Care Act and subsequent legal challenges to it, that at least one person at CNN would know that the constitutionality of the individual mandate would hinge on more than just the Commerce Clause since after all, the Obama administration claimed during oral arguments that the penalty for not adhering to the mandate was essentially a tax, and thus falls within Congress’s powers to tax and not regulate interstate commerce.

But instead, we get shoddy reporting from the most pathetic name in news, which has tried everything from superfluous graphics gimmicks to stocking election its election night coverage with no fewer than 73 pundits in a single studio because they think having dozens of blabbering dunderheads talking at the same time is better than the usual two or three. What was the Supreme Court’s decision again?

Wow, really?

 

 

Just another day at CNN.