As Chief Justice John Roberts began reading his decision on the future of President Obama’s health care overhaul, the CNN team inside the courtroom jumped the gun, believing that Roberts was saying the individual mandate was unconstitutional and would be overturned.

A producer inside the courtroom, Bill Mears, communicated the information to a relatively junior reporter, Kate Bolduan, the face of the network’s coverage outside on the courthouse steps.

Bolduan then reported, on air, that the invidual mandate was “not valid,” citing producer Mears.

“It appears as if the Supreme Court justices struck down the individual mandate, the centerpiece,” of the law, she said.

Bolduan, a 2005 graduate of George Washington University who previously worked for a local news station in North Carolina, was named the network’s congressional correspondent last year.

The 29-year-old was also named one of Washington’s 50 Most Beautiful people in 2011 by The Hill.

Moments after Bolduan spoke, the false story began to metastasize inside the network’s online operation.

The erroneous breaking news was made into a chyron at the bottom of the screen. CNN also sent out a breaking news alert.

And a half dozen top on-air reporters and producers within the esteemed news organization told BuzzFeed they are furious at what they see as yet another embarrassment to a network stuck in third place in the cable news race, and torn between an identity as the leader in hard news and the success of their opinionated, personality-driven rivals, Fox News and MSNBC.