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This study analyzes how journalists reacted to Cable News Network’s (CNN) incorrect reporting, on June 28, 2012, that the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down the Affordable Care Act as unconstitutional. The interpretive analysis of 117 print and online articles, using techniques of grounded theory, found that coverage of the error focused on five main themes: speed, accountability, complexity, context, and audience reaction. Drawing on themes from political economy and media ethics, the authors argue that journalists’ reactions to the error were often two sided, on the one hand castigating CNN for stressing speed, while themselves stressing who had the information first. Additionally, it is suggested that journalists attempted to fulfill the dual role of ombudsman and protector, admonishing colleagues who had made mistakes while simultaneously trying to protect the reputation of their industry as a whole.

Audience studies is a broad and multifaceted area of communication research. It encompasses a wide range of theoretical perspectives, as well as a diversity of methodological approaches, that all share a concern with understanding how and why audiences engage with media, and the broader political, cultural, and economic implications of the media––audience relationship. These areas of focus distinguish audience studies from the related area of media effects, which is more explicitly focused on the impact that media content has on audiences. The theoretical and methodological diversity of audience studies has been a source of contention within the field, as debates have persisted over the extent of audiences’ abilities to engage in alternative or oppositional interpretations of media texts; as well as over the relative merits of qualitative versus quantitative approaches to audience research.