Antonin Scalia, the conservative, outspoken and quick-witted Supreme Court justice, doesn’t have any respect for the fourth estate.
“The press is never going to report judicial opinions accurately,” Scalia broadswiped Saturday during a talk on the judiciary sponsored by the National Italian American Foundation.
It’s not just the news media. Scalia doesn’t respect citizens, either. He slams them both:
“They’re just going to report, who is the plaintiff? Was that a nice little old lady? And who is the defendant? Was this, you know, some scuzzy guy? And who won? Was it the good guy that won or the bad guy? And that’s all you’re going to get in a press report, and you can’t blame them, you can’t blame them. Because nobody would read it if you went into the details of the law that the court has to resolve. So you can’t judge your judges on the basis of what you read in the press.”
(The highly reputable Christian Science Monitor reported several years ago that the papers of the late Justice Thurgood Marshall show Scalia’s sarcasm even could annoy the affable then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a fellow conservative, who died in 2005. We see how that could be.)
Perhaps Scalia scans too many tabloid headlines and doesn’t spend enough time with serious media outlets. Any journalist who covers the Supreme Court, and even lower courts, is more than likely these days to have a law degree. Citizens who get their news from serious media outlets are educated, capable of understanding legal decisions and scrutinizing the details.
The limitless space on the Internet allows for the posting of courts’ full, often lengthy decisions, accompanied by in-depth analysis, which people do read.
Jan Crawford Greenburg, legal affairs editor for the Chicago Tribune and Supreme Court reporter for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, said in a 2000 interview: “A journalist who covers the Supreme Court is responsible for reporting and explaining its decisions, many of which have enormous implications for everyday life.
” … That’s pretty challenging, too, because the arguments and opinions are crammed full of complex legal terms, and it’s my job to explain them – and their importance – to readers and viewers in language that non-lawyers can understand.”
That sounds a lot more nuanced than good guy versus bad guy.
Something else:
” … The justices only explain themselves through their decisions. They don’t like publicity, and they don’t talk to reporters for stories,” Greenburg said. In addition, no cameras are allowed.
If Scalia is feeling misunderstood or misrepresented in his legal views, he should speak out, offer clarification. Certainly nothing in the Constitution prevents him from doing so.
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