On Media Blog Archives Select Date… December, 2015 November, 2015 October, 2015 September, 2015 August, 2015 July, 2015 June, 2015 May, 2015 April, 2015 March, 2015 February, 2015 January, 2015

CNN and Fox: Transparency vs. denial

In the 24 hours since CNN and Fox News inaccurately reported that President Obama's healthcare law had been struck down, the two networks have taken remarkably different approaches toward their mistakes -- specifically, CNN has been forthcoming and transparent while Fox News has been in denial.

Within two hours of its initial report, CNN issued a statement acknowledging its error. Throughout the day, CNN hosts and correspondents stated, frankly, that CNN's initial report had been inaccurate. In the afternoon, when reporting on how President Obama had initially believed the law had been struck down because of CNN and Fox News' reports, CNN White House correspondent Jessica Yellin made no bones about her network's role in that story. Then, last night, CNN SVP and Washington bureau chief Sam Feist sent a full-throated admission of failure to his staff, and announced that the network was 'looking into' the matter.

Fox News also issued a statement yesterday, but it was without apology or acknowledgment of error. "We gave our viewers the news as it happened, the Fox statement read, and concluded: "Fox reported the facts, as they came in." More specifically, Fox News defended itself by claiming that it reported the specifics of the ruling -- "When Justice Roberts said, and we read, that the mandate was not valid under the Commerce Clause, we reported it" -- and couched its statements with qualifications.

But a look at the tape shows that's not true. When the news broke, host Bill Hemmer reported that "the individual mandate has been ruled unconstitutional." Period, full stop. Fox notes that Hemmer would later say, "Be patient as we work through this." That hardly makes Hemmer's initial statement anything less than an inaccurate report. Indeed, if it wasn't inaccurate, host Megyn Kelly wouldn't have had to say: "Wait, we're getting conflicting information."

For the rest of the day, Fox News hosts skirted their network's mistake. When host Shep Smith and White House correspondent Ed Henry later discussed how President Obama had learned the wrong news, neither he acknowledged that Fox and CNN were responsible for that misinformation. Instead, Smith attributed it to "initial reports." The closest Fox came to an acknowledgment was when Smith said to Henry, "Interesting that he -- like we -- thought probably this thing had gone down."

"How did he react when he got the misinformation?" Smith asked.

If Fox News has sent around an internal memo regarding yesterday's error, I'd love to see it. (Email [email protected]). Fox spokespeople have not responded to requests for comment.