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: Lawbeat

Scalia's reflexive answer about journalism needs rethinking

By Mark Obbie

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Dan Slater interviewed Justice Antonin Scalia about his book and for general musings at The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog (parts one, two, and three). The interview concludes with a good question about Scalia's journalism critique, now that he's been attracting ample coverage on the book tour, and has generally been a talkative, engaging interviewee wherever he has appeared. The answer, alas, is a tired and lazy one:

Q. How would you grade the media these days? In the past, you’ve chided the press for its legal coverage. What’s your impression of the press now, after having been through several interviews in recent months?A. I gave a talk, years ago, about how the press covers courts ? this court or any court. And I didn’t think it was a mean talk at all. In fact I thought the theme was: To understand all is to forgive all. You cannot expect the general press ? your blog may be a little different because it’s directed to lawyers ? to say what a case is really about. You know, reconciling Section 232(b)(3) with some other section. You’d put your readers to sleep.Your readers want to know, did the good guy win or did the bad guy win? I analogize it to the most famous jury trial in all of literature [The Merchant of Venice], where the judge is praised: “Oh wise judge, oh beautiful judge.” But Portia was a terrible judge. I mean, you know, if you write a contract to take a pound of flesh, then obviously you take whatever blood goes with it. That’s implicit. That was terrible. But who cares! The good guy won, and the bad guy lost. And that’s basically what happens [in the press]. What we do here does not get faithfully conveyed.

It's a fair point when considering the broad range of courts coverage, in all media, especially local broadcast coverage and small-market papers. Even among national media, too often, what Scalia says is true. I've noted many examples on this blog. But come on -- where does he see that in the rarefied coverage of his court? The elite, bookish SCOTUS press corps is practically the only place where the kind of mindless, law-free coverage he's talking about doesn't happen. Scalia has made this pronouncement often enough that it flows effortlessly when prompted. But he's sharp and critical enough to think harder about distinctions among media -- or at least to support his dubious argument with evidence.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on May 30, 2008 (boomark / email).