WASHINGTON – Pete Williams led MSNBC’s coverage, bringing in SCOTUSBLOG for full analysis, giving new media the starring role in today’s historic Obamacare ruling. Meanwhile, CNN and Fox News vied for the first to break the news, but instead not only got beat by SCOTUSBLOG, but had an embarrassing collision with both networks blowing the call completely.

Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast:

As Wolf Blitzer was speaking, CNN ran an on-screen headline: “Supreme Ct. Kills Individual Mandate.” Correspondent John King called the ruling “a dramatic blow to the policy and to the president politically.”

On Fox News, anchor Bill Hemmer was reporting with this headline: “Supreme Court Finds Health Care Individual Mandate Unconstitutional.”

Both networks soon corrected their mistakes, but the damage had been done.

“CNN regrets that it didn’t wait to report out the full and complete opinion regarding the mandate,” the network said in a statement. “We made a correction within a few minutes and apologize for the error.”

That embarrassment capped the earlier speculation by much of the media that turned out to be flat wrong.

Taylor Marsh, a veteran political analyst and former Huffington Post contributor, is the author of The Hillary Effect, available at Barnes and Noble and on Amazon. Her new-media blog www.taylormarsh.com covers national politics, women and power.