How Supreme Court Reporting Is Changing With Technology
Technology is forcing U.S. Supreme Court journalists to rethink the way they do their jobs.
Not so long ago, Slate columnist Dahlia Lithwick wrote, most Supreme Court reporters “ambled out of oral arguments, enjoyed a light snack and a beverage, and then filed their stories for publication in the next morning’s paper.” Today the argument transcripts are posted quickly online, as are the reporters’ stories on the proceedings. In some cases audio recordings of oral arguments are also posted, giving the press a “mostly untapped opportunity to bring these voices alive.”
The Supreme Court also posts opinions online the day they are issued, but not as quickly as they go up on SCOTUSblog. Reporters no longer need to be stationed at the court to write about its decisions, Lithwick writes. “Yes, that’s the sound of Einstein’s space-time brain exploding,” she observes.
Technology is also allowing Supreme Court experts to post comments on the decisions at their own blogs. “Today, huge numbers of our leading legal thinkers are just too busy blogging the cases themselves to return our calls,” she writes. The change is good, but it makes it difficult for beat reporters to add value to their own stories, she says.
Lithwick notes two other developments. First, more of the justices are granting interviews and working on books, whether they are writing their own or cooperating with journalists. The result is an increasing number of stories on the justices, their personalities and their ideologies.
Second, some Supreme Court reporters are incorporating opinions into their blogs. In the past, the reporters strived for neutrality when reporting on the court. Lithwick suggests that Adam Liptak, the New York Times reporter who will take the place of Linda Greenhouse, could go even further and provide “some new kind of objective-expert-opinion Supreme Court coverage.” Lithwick thinks that would be a good thing.
“It always struck me as doubly peculiar that the folks with the most expertise about the court were the ones forced to keep their views to themselves,” she says.
