Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Lawbeat

Legal News

: Lawbeat

To the authors goes the access

By Mark Obbie

USA Today's Joan Biskupic and ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg both cashed in on their relationships with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to produce pieces today advancing O'Connor's public testimony about her husband's Alzheimer's. Biskupic, who wrote a biography of the justice three years ago, snagged a copy of O'Connor's written testimony, but no interview. Greenburg, whose reporting for her 2007 book on the Court included interviews with O'Connor, goes one better, with an on-camera interview aired on Good Morning America (Greenburg provides a text story on her Legalities blog and a link to the GMA report). A couple of lessons to draw from this: There's no competition between a national newspaper and a network news show when a source wants attention. TV wins every time. And, despite queasiness among SCOTUS reporters over the report last fall on John O'Connor's condition, Biskupic's decision then to buck the trend and write about it certainly didn't hurt her when O'Connor wanted to get her message out now.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on May 14, 2008 (boomark / email).