Roll it up, stick it in a pneumatic tube, youd get it down below. Decision you would get the back half first because you thing in it the whole the tube and youd write your story and hope it wasnt the part decisions and takes all of the puzzle pieces. On the ago if you were outside keenly interest in what the Supreme Court was going to do, you would hear it on the radio. Yes, before social media, there coverage. You might read about it in the afternoon newspaper assuming still e city you live in had one. A case of national interest, you might learn about it on one of network tv ening newscasts, but your best chance would still be to read about it the next spaper morning. Are he pneumatic tubes gone. So, for that matter, most afternoon newspapers. E havent gone the way of the pneumatic tube. The way we cover the court has changed but not as much as you might think. Course, for me, the big change is not so much social television. Le when i started covering the court, there was only one cable news network, i cant now. Ber the name of it but new technology for reporters covering the Supreme Court 43 the ago would have been exciting radio shack trs80. Kill bytes of memory, there was no worldwide web and Tom Goldstein had yet to birthday. Rst he development of intensely competitive environment of cable news. Now in the big decisions, i cant have the luxury of sitting in the courtroom and listening to the judges summarize their rulings. Often make more sense than the decisions. Quick s you an instant kind of core decision of what the decision is. Up waiting outside wired waiting for the first word of the decision. Struck up a partnership goldstein. Ult tom hes the publisher of scotus blog. You know its phillips code Supreme Court of the u. S. Back of the old wire service days. Atwas getting the first look the decisions as an extremely fast intern, running them to us. I had tom on the phone in one ear and waiting for the intern the other out in ear. News. Com te, nbc carried the scotus blog live time. At the same were usually competing with the eyeballs with h our cases but blogs and websites covering the court in one specific way. That is its now possible to do ost of your work covering the Supreme Court in your jammis. Because it used to be that you ad to go to the court if you wanted to know what the case was about and pull the stack of and s off, go to your desk read them. Now thats not true. You need to read all of the briefs. Now you can read everything. The lower court decision, the am als court decision, the cus briefs, everything online. The other thing that hanged it for us, for me, anyway, is the range of commentary available. Speaking of social media. Im talking about traditional blogs. Election law case, we turn to ricks election law blog. Theres a sentencing case, we look at the sentencing law blog. Specialty egal websites out there that offer instant analysis or instant supreme the news and court cases that we didnt used to have. As lly, i would just say tony did, the court is very slow to embrace the digital revolution. After all a court that not only have tortoise ties but quill pens to arguing count counsel. Get transcripts of the oral argument. Ou can hear the audio of oral arguments though you have to wait till friday after the case is argued just to make sure that value is news completely drained out. And just to give you a brief insight of how eager the court s to embrace this this consulting Edge Technology known as radio. We go back toays, the bush v gore case, they the audio of the oral argument the same day. At the end of the term, they got to the and Went National archives. I dont mean the justices. I s a tempting thought, but referring to the recordings. Attempted the argument of cases, bush v on Palm Beach County and bush v. Gore the same day. Agree to do that profile cases. Gh they did it last year. Then the court said well, what were going to do is to make transparent, were going take the oral argument from every day all three days, monday, tuesday, wednesday, and make them available on the ebsite friday showing how open and transparent and mag man mum for educators like you and for g it impossible journalists like us to get anything out of it. Chief in one of the lunches violating the secrecy of these lunches. Its on you, williams. Yes, it is. Told me that you know, we said, can we do this a little more often to have the sameday argument. He basically said, i dont think its going to happen. Couple of reasons. He says he doesnt want to be in decideition of trying to which case is newsworthy enough to merit this kind of treatment, is i think r thing the justices fear its the camels nose for Television Coverage and they just dont to go there. Having me. You for a pleasure to be here with my the press corps and with terry, pete was talking bout the difference between 43 years ago and today. I covered the court for five years which makes me junior. A little bit about why it is that people who arrive beat never me court want to leave. Even in the five years i covered have changed ngs substantially. Greenhousesor, linda who left after 30 years, and hen she left, she was only the third most senior person covering the court. Did not have a computer at the courthouse. Courthouse upstairs, pressroom downstairs. Everybody in these days are downstairs. At the New York Times it was do nically impossible to that. Linda would come down, having justices give you a private seminar giving you what heyre thinking in colloquial terms, clear and accessible, the decision, read it, consult, consider, have a sandwich. Fullness of time as light was fading in washington, she birth to a first class story. Clearly not only explained the complicated sometimes overlapping tns but them in context, spelled out the possible consequences of various strains in the decision. A thing of beauty and would arrive on your doorstep Something Like 24 hours after happened and that was fine. Thats the way the world worked. Nostalgia i have for those days cant be overstated. And we would also, until i think 11 oked it up, until 10 or ears ago, routinely publish extended full page of excerpts. Why . The only way to see part of ady cigs. Why . Would pass. A list of 15 reporters. Would see the decision and read the Supreme Court decision. Gone. F this is we live in an era of speed. What i noticed this last term is the medium g to level cases. Understand when the health care cases were decided or samesex marriage is decided or affirmative or action, we have an obligation somethingaders to get up very, very fast. Im having a reflexive result rom my editors to get downstairs and put up four or six paragraphs almost immediately. Four or six paragraphs are, shooting from the hip, i hope ot wrong, but not great and i not better than the associated press. And yet that will have the greatest readership of anything i write. I write several other versions, each better than than st, each less read the last. N the next mornings paper, we have a nice archival piece that ur four remaining subscribers on the Upper West Side will read. The need for speed is pernicious our skills to take and mush them together. Nd you know, im i wasnt trained as a wire service reporter. I dont think its a special skill of mine. I can more or less fake it. But if i bring something to the table, its the ability that all of my colleagues have. The reason we have a dedicated get better at you the job the longer you do it very fewhere are very, people, including law professors familiar with the courts docket in the sense of reading the briefs, going to the arguments, reading the decisions, seeing the habits of mind, seeing the patterns as over similar issues year after year after year. And you are able to explain not better but en case to explain the run of cases, the sense of where the court is fits into e this broader doctrine because you do it long enough. Same time, i think theres a decent argument to be that the Supreme Court is overcovered. I dont think we have fewer since ive been there. We have fewer than we had 20 25 years ago. When 20 of us write essentially the same story. You put them sidebyside. Very similar. They have the same quote in the follows, graph that you know, journalistic conventions of fairness, else. Ce, everything but its not clear to me that some of the resources ought not thee devoted to the rest of American League landscape. And as the Supreme Court is uite adequately covered, state Supreme Court and circuit courts are being bled dry and very controversial decisions out the land are not they g the coverage deserve. As far as social media. Pete said. H what its a gateway to get to the stories. What people are tweeting and stories. O are thats a good thing. Twitter itself can be a nice way to make sure you dont miss anything. Its a version of a wire service. Are frequently things that dont rise to the level of a New York Times worth noting. There are stories that tony will do a good job on but i cant justify. I can not in that direction by tweeting something out. And we probably have various philosophies on this. Celebratelso a way to your competition because there are so few scoops, because we part ou know, one little f the journalistic tool box, because were interpreting puck ick events and documents, we can be friendly. Twitter is an opportunity to celebrate when one of your colleagues did something cool or an insight or wrote about some aspect of the culture of may have been overlooked. Of ability s a kind o get past the notion that were competing in our separate silos and have more interaction. Agree t, let me wholeheartedly with adam that he should be reassigned. Think hes going to waste at the Supreme Court. Youve that would be great at the pentagon. Youve sort off we storiesink have similar about the way that sort of the revolution in technology is our jobs. He way we do and so i wont go on too long questions. Get to your i would tell you, for an i thought it might be give you an idea that when comes along, like the cases this riage year, the two day, my job at the oral as to go to the arguments, write a story as soon as i could run downstairs, sort as fast as i could. To ive a radio interview come back to the office and do a google hangout in which i was with others who were interested in the subject, that story that i had written earlier to make it for the web. Er and then thinking about what i was going to do for the next paper. Its a rhythm thats completely changed for all of us, as youve heard. We learned ing that n coverage from the web audience is that the web audience is used to getting news if we are in d as he courthouse and breaking our streets. Om hat we did is an idea that lets say borrowed from the journal. There was an overflow room that reporters could listen to the arguments. Sort of front row reporters. Er we had another reporter in the back row that could get out easier. Reporter listened to 30 minutes of the oral rguments and she came out and started what looked like a realtime blog but was actually putting down of her notes. Went through this. The Washington Post misled the readers . Wouldnt say that. The second reporter then came thing. The same because ge traffic thats how people are used to getting that news. They wanted even if the court really cooperate in allowing us to report the news way. And so we could probably go on technology the way and this new media has changed the way we do things. At timeslways reminded like these of Justice Scalia aying one of his advice to lawyers book was that when ever a judge asks you a question, find f you dont like it, a way to answer it. Its the only time you can be sure that theyre actually to you. G so maybe thats what we should do. Thank you very much. Lets open it up to questions audience. Hi, my name is kayla. Im a broadcast student. Am pleased to intern at nbc. And my question is for pete. Ofn youre telling the story the Supreme Court in the Television Format and your audience has already found out results, how do you add to the story, pull the audience, and keep them interested . I dont know what the percent of the audience that watches say news. Ly it changes throughout the day. I assume that when i come out of announcing m or im the decision, no one has seen it yet. You hope that youre sort of at pointy end of the spear at that point. Evening news, i guess our goal is a little bit like for people ke writing a newspaper story. Make it make sense for me. Riveting as it is to read me that ht occurs to that was a big deal. Thats the way i teed up the story. Kind of our task. I will say this that one of the fun things about covering he Supreme Court, one of the things that i dearly love is to day and read all how these guys write it the next day. That. Because i thank god there are still newspapers. That k its wonderful people get these 140character bursts of news. But i hope to god theyre going adam and robert and tony online or in the paper so that understand the Supreme Court decision. Guess what . Its more complicated than 140 characters. More important than that. If youre not reading those articles, you know, if youre watching me, god forbid are thank you. Channel 4 in most major markets. The the ot reading the story that these guys are writing, then youre cheating yourself. Youre missing out. Were not getting what you need. Diet. Eating a cheap theres an interesting part, a premise to your question is our question is for whom are you writing . One is what do they know about a particular case . Is what do they know in general and what intellectual pitch should you be writing. That to be a real challenge. You have an impulse because we all live, actually, were part this rarified world in many ways and we know the advocates professors who follow this stuff and we interact with judges and justices. You have an impulse to impress those people with the insight of ome small aspect about the case. You may be doing your readers a disservice in the process. You have to control that impulse and sort of picture a reader who is, you know, but not a lawyer. Doesnt follow the court closely and find a way to write to that while you dont offend the person who knows a lot of stuff. Of ou have to slip in some the background material so that its not sticking out and youre things that are obvious to people. You nonetheless are for sure going to leave people behind. Nature, its very complicated. Theres another part of that too. It goes with the idea of prolive court of analysis of the which all of us really take in every day. That sometimes you forget to write in the obvious. Someone else has written it or its out d you think there instead i often find a written that i think is, you know, kind of ones thatious are the i get the most reader response toed or the people in the are smart people who Pay Attention to news all the time. But, still, you know, they dont what we do. And sometimes we have to sort of step back and think what do people really know about this . Sue yes. Chuck todd, you may have heard of him. He was here yesterday and said of the things that he elects about the selective consumption of media, obviously im not eloquently, this as he doesnt feel that you have to dumb down coverage. E feels like you have particularly pete was talking about nightly news you have an audience thats coming to you. Making a conscious decision to turn on your show. Nd that he feels like he can actually then elevate the coverage and talk about the important issues. Curious to see whether the panel agrees with that. Well, i think its always about its always about the audience. Used to cover the court for usa today, a vastly different audience than my current audience of mostly lawyers at the national law journal. He challenge is really the same. I cant you know, i can be now y sure that my readers know what habeas corpus is. Too much moresume han that because a lot of the real estate or experts onnd are not criminal law. You have to keep it simple. Political dd is a idiot savant. If you wake him up and say who seat in ongressional ohio in 1937, hell know. Should know too. To the you can go orrin kerr nd read from g. W. s 10,000word treatise what a recent decision was, if you want to. Thing. S a specialized that is the great thing about social media and the websites is that you can drill down. I never used the word habeas corpus and any of the pieces on televisiont it because i dont think people know what it is. We have to try to write around that. In usa today once, i used joint and several liability and tell about it. Can you s to know share what your social media habits and what platforms do you look at . I check in on scotus blog and another blog thats on hiatus currently which makes me nervous. At the conspiracy, i look specialized blogs. I follow a lot of people on twitter. I dont find facebook useful, it me of my parents christmas letter. Its right. Me nervous. S its too much information, sometimes. It is i think the way you find out about decisions in the courts faster than almost else. Re truly valuable recording justthat i would have said a couple of years ago. Thats a place that i think has way probably the we do thingings. The other thing, and this but exactly social media, its good Old Fashioned email. Thing that the biggest change in our tenure i suppose is when i first started likeg to the court, it was pulling teeth to get lawyers or law firms to talk about a case, read ally if they hasnt it and it hasnt come in the of yet and they were out town. Now i routinely get 30 pitches a for even the most minor cases. I do a lot of business with a lot of cases of obscure lawyers interested in. But the pitch is offering their lawyers to comment on the Supreme Court case. Within within ten an hour of the opinion coming down. Tremendous change. Again that goes to the intensity of the coverage and broader universe of people telling the story. You talked a lot about the of the Supreme Court through social media and twitter so forth. Do you think the justices hemselves pay tribute to the social media matter . Is it oblivious to this . Yes, we do. The outgoing clerk on scotus blog when he left this summer. People tell us we read some of the same blogs. I suspect, Justice Breyers tweeting experience is vastly exaggerated, from what i understand. And i think i think he said all he did right . Ad, he didnt affirmatively tweet. Thats right. Thats right. , who would be the justices to regularly tweet and would be sonya sotomayor. Not for a long time. Justices have a way of doing hings that they are very reluctant to change. To explain in a written long explanation of why we voted the way we did. Arguments are in public. People file their briefs in public. So they think theyre very open. Bear in mind also that each ave four brainiac 25yearold clerks and those folks, im can monitors social media and brings stuff to their bosses. Whether or not it affects them, its a couple of decades behind the technology. Decided a major pager case. And i personally think that a scalia tweet would be in all caps. Question. Yeah. Theres one in the back im seeing a hand. You stand up. As journalists and educators. m wondering i dont know how many of you have a law degree. Do. Now some of you how critical is it to have a legal background to cover the Supreme Court. Students, if youre a good reporter, you can master any beat. Is that true for the Supreme Court . Cover it if you do not have a legal background . We heres only one lawyer, should ask him . You know, you really cant. My instinct is a good general get on nt reporter can top of any beat. Nd that Linda Greenhouse did a oneyear law program but not a lawyer but covered the court for 30 years. Read briefs, go to arguments, ead the decisions, you go to law school ten times in a row. Roughly a ays been a third of it have a law degree. Once i dont have a law degree. Was offered a chance to teach media law course. Sure you want to out of journalism school. I said im not a lawyer. The person said im not a lawyer long enough. Overing half of the cases that youve been thinking about. It made me feel very old. Me feel more make confident. Confident enough to take on the course. The communications and bcu. The court today in many ways polarization and the society at large. And yet over the years, a number examples of justices who evolved into something that was not y expected. That seems to be happening less today. Im curious to your thoughts on that. Were vetting them more because on the basis of specific issues as opposed to general philosophy, judicial philosophy. That a good thing . That we have a better idea of once eyre going to vote they get on the court . I think absolutely. President s have a better idea of how theyre going to vote. I think that much work goes into this before someone is nominated. F you look at the four new ustices on the court, no pair usually votes more alike than roberts and aleto, except in years kagan and sotomayor. Nd so certainly the last two president s have gotten exactly what they were looking for in he justices that they nominated. And i think there are a lot of reasons for that. Easier to vet a judge in a all nd its faster to read of their decisions to know sort of everything about them. And so i think the days of sort taking a guess on somebody are over. I think the president s have cracked a code across two dimensions. At the sitting judge opinions. The other is to look at somebody experienceive branch in d. C. So friends and colleagues will know their politics. Place where t the theres been ideological drift, oconnor, they were all outside of the beltway creatures who couldnt be relied on. To an extent, president ford did say he just wanted a good lawyer. Was a time when politics was not the only determinant. I think it was david suters tenure that wised up president s about this. Stealth rt of the candidate people kind of thought he was conservative. Conservative. The president george h. W. Bush did. But then hep turned out not to be. And, you know, the mantra was no so now they nd are now adam said, theyre that they know the pedigree much more deeply before before they nominate somebody. So that theyre not going to change. Clarence thomas once said, i aint evolving. Hasnt, really. Evolving. Ng of not were sbrels in media law issues here and where the court may go First Amendment sorts of issues including these technologies that were talking may not be the court as comfortable with them. I have a worry that down the oad there may be bad law made by justices that arent as comfortable with technologies. Theyre comfortable with radio, maybe not internet, facebook, or twitter. Share concerns or see issues arising on this. Concerns. Ave those i did a column last weekend which pointed out that the chief worry said the biggest for him are these technology ssues that they dont really understand very well. And that they know that they with, cell phone apabilities and easier ways to track people without having a cop follow them around. I think there are a lot of those issues out there. And i think theyre going to consume the court for a while. The justices are very, very smart people. Terribly o not seem comfortable with these subjects arguments. N oral youll hear things that, you know, that youre surprised to coming from some of them. And i dont consider myself a expert. Ing the chief justice joked that he 12yearold help them program the Parental Controls on the television. He told them what they need to. Fourth amendment context, they had a search and seizure context. And how much this will come to the court, i hope, this will come to the case. Thats all we hope for, interesting cases. Police search your cell phone when they arrest you. Looking through your pockets . An the Police Follow the movements by using a gps device or tracking your cell phone. Hard. S going to be look at the First Amendment side of things. The Supreme Court is going to have a lot of trouble applying internet. E there have been several attempts by congress with it rations of decency act to restrict content on the internet. The court has never gone for it. Theyve been First Amendment aware. Hofstra university. Im wondering, so many years if you wanted for some reason to spin reaction to a decision because your involved or for ideological reasons, you go to one of the people up there and hey, whisper in your ear. I think this is the right interpretation. Resumably, that goes on in a variety of ways but it seems like a lot more places for influence to come in. Change in the kind of ecology of spin for Court Decisions over the last 20 to 30 years . Is it has it changed . Has it actually shifted anything . Different waysly of doing it, but the outcome is kind of the same . I think the people who are doing it havent changed that much. That theyk the places can go are much more various. Aclu is , at the bringing a case, were going to hear from them. And we would have heard from 30 years ago. But youll hear from them on their own website now. Youll hear from them on various web casts and youtube all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, i think i dont is k that my sense of it is that the number of voices hasnt really changed or the a ple who really care about big Supreme Court case, you know, one measure of that, by the way, is not social need yeah. The number and friend of the court briefs theyre trying to influence the people that account for directly. Thats the justices. You whoknow those of cover the court longer than i have. A huge number in the case this whether you can patent jeans. I had a huge number in the obama last time. But weve had cases in the past where there were a lot of them too. That as people start to Consumer Media in a whenof eck cochamber way, they go to hear from their own artisan affiliation, those sources are likely to present courts actions in raw political terms. And i think that partly accounts the recent dip in the courts approval ratings. Thats a lack of justice generally. I dont think its Supreme Court specific. Think those moments in time when the person who casually follows the court hears be politics ght involved, which is to say the Health Care Decision is a big of that. Hearings tends to be big instance of that. V. Gore. United, bush ethics and criticisms of some of the justices. They contribute to a courts current fairly poor approval rating. I would say too. This maybe studied more of than i often am asked about things because they are trending social media people in the newsroom. When i look, i see something completely wrong or i think something that has een terribly taken out of context. And both on a from the iberal side and from a conservative side. Goes out nformation there and becomes a real thing. Wondering, do you step in and correct it. O you let it run its tide and not contribute to it. I think those are sometimes tough decisions for those of us the media. Actually, let me ask my colleagues there was a lot of either thomas or kagan should have recused him or the health care case. Moat seem to think thats not a complaint. D i didnt write about it at all. Or maybe only in passing. To bobs point, it was evaluate the claims. What do you guys do . I wrote a fair amount about it. To be fair and balanced, i wrote about both justices. Raised bigger t issues about recusal policies, is something that i have been writing about it for many years. So i thought it was a vehicle to and why justices should recuse. Ultimately i didnt think there was much chance or for them to son recuse. But i wrote about it anyway. It much. t write about we didnt do many stories on the air about it or on the web. We got a lot of email saying we should. My perception of it was that the that there were liberals saying that Clarence Thomas should recuse because of you trust d how can him and it was conservatives kagan should ena recuse. It was cross purposed and as you say, adam, very political. I heard neutral saying, hey, minute, this is not good government. I did write about it from those angles. If you remember the chief justice addressed it in his year he does a yearend of the perks of being a Supreme Court reporter that the the justice releases yearend report on new years eve. In the afternoon. And so that you can write about it for the next day. Anyway the readership on you. It without scussed going to detail about it and justices defended the as being able to make their own not ions about this end to be influenced. Talk about the health care case. Obviously the famous flub where people reported it wrong. Following the days it, there is a lot of different reporting that you dont necessarily always see about the court that was about who wrote the opinion when and who flipped the dissent really a majority that became a dissent . And then the reporting about where did this information come from . As thomas wife upset with roberts and leaking that information to the press . Interesting theory. How did you feel covering it. T was a different kind of Supreme Court coverage man usually happens. We didnt do much with it for reason is that number one, i want doesnt matter. What matters is what the court said. True. Its the opinion does look like it was written in a taxi ride from Union Station to the Supreme Court. It doesnt flow. Its not well organized. And, you know, so it invites all of that stuff. Thats why god made tony morrow write stories like that. Well, actually, that story primarily jan crawford who wrote about the leak or who was sort recipient of the leak about the justices being angry roberts and things like that. Because shes a very good and credible reporter, we all paid attention. Think if it was just some on wouldnt have ou gotten much attention. It did merit writing about. T is interesting what behind the scenes coverage behind the scenes maneuvering on a ecision even though it doesnt matter in the actual outcome. I will say one thing, though, about it. Im not es necessarily thinking of any specific stories. But the overall tone of the the chiefbout whether justice changed his vote was the implication was and thats just wrong. And that was the part of the story that i thought was, you because the the fact is justices change their mind as finish line the quite often. Perhaps not in a spectacular way as that. But what matters is what they say in the decision that comes out. Little quick addon to that oo is that the criticism of roberts from the right was really striking, i thought as calling it a betrayal by some people. Know, the at these hearings in which theyre ominating, theyre basically beat over the head over and over again. Will you be fair, will you be neutral. You not have your mind made up. And then as soon as someone is urprising, its like, wait, this isnt what we ask for. This isnt what we so i was unusual and interesting aspect to that too. That criticism would have he quote unquote changes the vote or not. Perhaps important because it gives us some sense of what maybe the chief justice like . And whats important to him . I mean, this could have been a furthered his ideological viewpoint. But instead, he didnt seem to do that because of institutional concerns . We dont really know. Doesnt it, indicate something about maybe how he thinks . And in that sense, its important . But, again, you want to draw distinction in the vote whether switched or not and the fact of the switch. The fact of the switch is interesting. F i hasnt been able to report it, i would have. Its a valuable piece of information. But i dont think its important of what we know from the face of the opinion, we roberts, about john hat in this particular instance, he went against what was his ideology in prestige ave been the of the court. Hes 57 at the time. He plans to be around for a long time. Dont think he wanted his legacy to be five republican appointees over the sense of appointees tic striking down the signature, egislative achievement of a democratic president in an election year. Yes . I teach common law. This is for robert and maybe adam. Brought up the samesex marriage. Ou know i brought windsor and perry cases up to my students back in march. Say, hey, theres something you need to be looking for. A lot of the decisions come up in june. A lot of them are looking for it. Some of his facebook friends and everything. Im curious as to how your media how they reacted that week . Because i know i was on needles pins and some oh the department. N my we got something in the beginning of the day and say, he Supreme Court is not going to say anything. Theyre not going to act on it today. That was monday, tuesday, wednesday. Happened, how many eople in your organization reported and what did they do with the social media and everything . Well, it was, you know, as on. Say, the days go you never know what youre going to get. Ae last week was, i think, as newsworthy extraordinary week hat ive certainly ever been involved in at the court. In every decision that last week practically. Nd so with with domas and prop 8, we did know that was coming down that day. Help you line of things up and get things ready to be posted immediately. All over. Ple i re were i dont couldnt tell you how many people, but certainly a lot. Those was another one of days where it was one thing after another. An as file a story and do online to do a video to explain the decision. A it was a pretty hectic week. It was also a day that exposed the kind of fault line. Nd i think the fault line is between these two guys and us 5050 now. Nd maybe upstairs in the courtroom when announced n is incommunicado when all hell broke loose and editors are saying, boy, i wish i could talk to my scotus reporter and a long announcerment of the biggest the doma case. T turned out to be a really landmark case. And then, theres this nothing case. The government corruption that having delivered the most steam the ears of dissent that ive seen, justice have another one. We sit there for ten minutes while he announces the other one. Prop 8 case which was confusing. And then having all of that, you were almost an hour into it. We go downstairs and we try to ourselves in the flow of the machinery. Just e footnotes those of you who dont understand the machinations here begin to tices announce an opinion decision in the courtroom, the decision and that one is handed out downstairs. So if there are four decisions tuesday, you dont get all four at once. You get them as theyre announced. We got and you should say they come in reverse seniority of the justice who wrote it. So the most senior justices do their cases at the end. Doma case first. It had the hidden answer to how he prop8 case was going to be decided in it. Doma se the dissent in the case were saying i dont know why were taking this case and prop8 ot taking the case. So we knew before they even decision, the prop8 we knew how that was going to be decided as well. Yes. I have a question thats a to trygential, im going to tie it in to social media. Bombings. E boston and Pete Williams journalist rock star, i believe you were on twitter that day. Big papi, we call him. Goes to the of speed of telling a story and Something Like that story, you youre used to covering Supreme Court which is slow and he decisions are you kind of know theyre coming, Something Like a bombing story which the one was glued to television and there were erroneous reporting everywhere. How do you stick to your sourcing when you hear other stuff. What was that day like for you . I think that was such a from and ching perspective someone who studies journalists, an interesting day of reporting, i guess. I would say that in a sense, we were all kind of warned about this sort of thing. Misreporting was the hallmark of that story from the very beginning. Around. Ere rumors and i must say social media is a part of it. Social the ugly side of media. People were tweeting like crazy the the fbi had shut down cell phones in boston right after the bombing because they were afraid people were going to using cell bombs phones. That wasnt true. The phones were overloaded and they shut down. Example. s just an thats right out of the box, right that have happened. There. Ct information out and you just sort of were kind i guess, to be skeptical about everything you heard. Two things about the rue prosecutor mores someone had arrested. You cant report what you dont know. The same thing every tay. You call up your sources and eat the crap out of them to give you something and you hang up and 20 minutes later, you do over again. So you have to go with the sources that you had. None of the people i talked to an arrest. Re was i was lucky to be the front man at nbc fective team news. News. Surrounded by solid people as well. I should say i would take too much credit and not report anything around me. The end of ing to good way so may be a to end. Back in the olden days, the s, the traditional wisdom was rehnquist would never agree to cameras unless all of the agreed and there was no unanimity on it. Here was speculation that Thurgood Marshall would step down, then cameras would happen. Happen. Dnt some justices in the confirmation hearings suggested receptive to cameras and they come back to congress in the,000 hearings, ive changed my mind, over my dead body. Whats the situation now . Are they ever going to embrace cameras in the courtroom . I would like to say itss some day some day, before the medium of television its es so outdated that irrelevant. But im not sure i see a clear except for , possibly congress telling them to. Its just such a intransient so stubborn about it, they, as you strategy the media and its not really a strategy, as to wait for new young justices to come on who werent afraid of cameras. Justices would come on and they were afraid of cameras. Its its something about the aura of the court that descends on new justices once theyre in there. And its not a matter of the itting justices telling kagan or sotomayor, you know, cameras terrible, dont you dare take it another step in that direction. Just there is this eeling, and i think kagan has talked about this, that many of them talk about this. That once, you know, once youre court, youre on the court. You feel like holy mowly. The Supreme Court im i dontupreme court and want to i dont want to mess it up. And they have this feeling, this stewards of the Supreme Court they dont want to make a change like that because think its going to spoil what the magic of the court and the mystique of the court. I always argue that i think it you know, when ever the court is more the spotlight, it usually ends up looking pretty good. Think see why the they the cameras would that its like the familiarity briefs contempt. Seem to think that. That the more familiar theyll less the public will like them. Thats just the opposite is the case. The short answer is i dont eally know how else its going to come about except for taking it up g and lenlgts lating or requiring law, i dont see how its going happen. Anybody else have an idea. Gotten less likely in recent years. Think first of all, theres absolutely no principled reason to exclude the American Public seeing their government at work. Its ridiculous. On the other hand, if i were on court, id be happy with the way people work. Rise of stewart and colbert on youtube, i dont think its the case that they win. I do think these are very, very able judges. Argument before the court, particularly if you read the briefs, its really interesting. Also possible just to take the occasional goofy thing that some of them are capable of and putting out in a way that will subject them to authentic momry. That. Now i think that terrifies them. Think the fact that there was a republican attack ad after the focused on arguments solicitor general dons argument which, in fact, didnt need doing, but edited to make it worse. They used the audio and they didnt like that at all. They drew a lesson from that. I think adam hit it on the head. Think the reason the judges did not want Television Coverage is they didnt want to be starbucks. Line at they didnt want to be that anonymity. Eff Justice Rehnquist would tell stories how he would walk around the court after a daily say, hey, outine and would you take our picture, were standing in front of the not realizing they were asking the chief justice to do that. Factor. Its a big i think scalia does watch the believe it or not. I think they are genuinely worried about it. Snippets. Bout i tell him, thats all adam and bob has. Quote. What a they dont reproduce the entire transcript of the oral arguments. Snippets too. But they think theres a different impact and i think are themselves being made fun of and the institution being made fun of. In the s a question back. Are there w it any other questions from the audience . We have three, four minutes . Yes . Terry. Get one with im just here to stir the pot. As journalism professors you on the put spot. As journalism professors, we the ultimate bout function of journalism is to aid democracy, to help people govern themselves. So as court reporters, you hope that the reporter is helping the American People to understand the democratic process and the court system and the judicial system
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