This past Thursday was a momentous day for United States citizens as the Supreme Court ruled on the Obama health care reform law. Many people tuned in to the news, checked their Twitter feeds, and followed the SCOTUS live blog to see if they will be able to afford health insurance or not.

In a race to break the news first, CNN won! However, they reported the wrong decision online as well as television. In all fairness, Fox News also reported the wrong thing on television as well.

English: The CNN Center in Atlanta.

The first problem here is that readers/viewers/listeners will raise credibility flags. Sure a major news outlet will not be totally tarnished by a slip-up like this in some people’s eyes, but it may be enough for some people to check another outlet first next time. There are hundreds of news outlets out there. Arguably, misreporting one of the biggest stories of the year is enough to sway people to use another source for their breaking news in the future.

The second problem is that CNN has inadvertently opened themselves up for relentless mockery in this technologically advanced age. Anyone who saw the slip up immediately took to Twitter, Facebook, and other outlets to point out this mistake.

This:

 

Followed by this:

 

And not to mention this Mashable article containing hilarious “memes” produced mere hours after the ruling: Obamacare Memes: Mashable

The old saying goes “no PR is bad PR,” but in this case a highly touted news outlet is under fire and there may be some real reputation damage.

The simple remedy for an occasion like this? – Wait it out a minute before allowing trigger-happy fingers to start sending misinformation. As news consumers, we were aware in this instance every media outlet was waiting at the same time for the same announcement, so rights to “first” were not really important. As a PR professional pressing the Send Button, you’re leaving yourself open to mockery or misleading many people: even the President.