Blog a lot. We have demographic information about our readers as most websites do. We have a relationship with them exclusive write content for their users, their subscribers. But the principal focus is heyve made a judgment that advertising Bloomberg Law on scotus law has economic value. Social ey think its a good. You cant lose sight of the fact that bloomberg made a decision for this was something good the country. They may be right, they may be wrong. Calculus. Part of the theyre unbelievably good to us. This is another unusual thing about a sponsor. They give us money and they ask nothing of us. Thats a remarkable relationship to have. Sponsored by ings Bloomberg Law. Try and highlight what it occasionally. They have decided to finance this operation. Numbers is not something i want to discuss contractual e relationship. But yes, it does finance the existence. They dont put constraints on us so long as the people understand the blog itself is exclusively sponsored by them. What other people are going to this era where media obviously faces as people ere know much better than me, media faces real challenges when people like scotus blog are information for free. Journalistic contributions going in terms of creations . Heir we create a problem rather than solving a problem. Hat is it that Supreme Court insiders are going to do in terms of creating unique contact. Inspire people to do more innovative things to find their iche in the marketplace as we tried to as well. But what youre going to do about a space like scotus blog, if youre the New York Times or if youre a local player or media, American Lawyer its a real puzzle. We have to recognize the possibility we might celebrate an existence, but as economic matter, it may cause solved. Oblems than it and scotus blog itself may contribute some content. Ut the body of all of the reporting by tony and by others. Hat really informs the country and what journalism is going to do to have an economic model so and f that can survive thrive is something that i know the people in this room think about a lot. Lastwould like to make one comment and i will bring it to a close. Petes comment is very important. I wanted to tie it with janet watching television. I know realtime like doma i dont know if nbc cut in on that. Oh, yes. Average ox, msnbc, the fox viewer is 67 i believe, msnbc. For cnn and now those of us who are standing in front of classrooms with 18 21yearolds, janets point is well taken. Ts not a natural tendency to turn on those channels. As the demographics suggest. Why ere is something about would jeff jones watch the major rulings on Civil Liberties watch t on scotus blog and not the other networks. Theres something fundamental to to the tionship relations of Digital Media that will play out here. Interesting role recisely because it is so good and precisely because i won the peabody. Were well aware of the trends. Hats why if you were on the msnbc website, you would have seen the scotus blog. Nbc, New York Times had taken the material from the live blog. Cspan, last year in the health cspan put cram on the live blog and streamed it i think. Span 3, theres this adaption where it us or then. To be were so grateful. That nbc news n has, npr, pbs carried the live blog as well is because were not trying to we dont have a ay wall, because were not trying to make money on an eyeball basis. Reach a e know that we lot of people, we have a lot of hese collaborative relationships. That, again, is something to amys point. If you create a website, people about you if you have something substantive to say, you will get exposure when through media that really touch a lot of people. Example of that. Eople ought to realize if theyre good at one particular topic, the opportunity to reach topic is not necessarily the people who find you through google but, in fact, is principally through the legacy traditional media that have so many eyeballs. Take a tenminute break. Please join me in thanking our [ applause ] now from the university of georgias discussion on media Supreme Court. Well hear about cases that the court is hearing this term. This is an hour and 15 minutes. Good morning. Our Second Panel Discussion is nittygritty of covering the Supreme Court. You notice on the screen above which elists is a sketch is the only technology that the Supreme Court allows in the courtroom. This is graciously provided by art lien who does sketches for scotus blog. Through our panel, well rotate through a couple of other sketches. Veteran Supreme Court reporters describe the collegiality among press corps, the often attributing this to the lack of scoops on the beat. As linda green house said, she covered to court for 30 years, we all have access to the same information. Covers the court for the Supreme Court says the typical washington focus on secrets does not apply to the Supreme Court. This is not said, beat. Ce care ter the 2012 health ruling, Jan Greenberg wrote a roberts ut justice switching his vote. She attributed her story to two knowledge h specific of deliberations. It was a month long effort led y Justice Kennedy to bring roberts back to his original position, quote, he was relentless, unquote, one source said of kennedys efforts. Quote, he was very engaged in this. I want to start with tony morrow for 33 red the court years. Tony, why were there not more stories like this . I only wish. Anybody could call me up and give me a story like that, i would be happy to receive it. There are several answers. Suchs basically that it is such a sealed institution and the law clerks pledge to not reveal anything about their deliberations. The law clerks being the three or the four usually young employers who who helped the justices screen cases and write opinions. Decision did come out and seemed so anomalous for the court to declare the Affordable Care act unconstitutional under one part of the constitution. Under n constitutional another part. I think people were looking for these lanation behind very peculiar decisions. My suspicion was that it was a justice or a justices source. Ill ask pete to jump in. Again, pete, why arent you getting stories like this on a regular basis . Well, lets lets keep our eye on the ball here. The sort of scoops that one values from the Justice Department is what theyre going to do. Going to indict. What the departments policy is to be about prosecuting marijuana users. Who the attorney is going to choose to do something. Who the president is going to justice. To be the next so the number of leaks about ist the court is going to do very small. Now these sort of after the mean, look, lets give jan her due. Story. An interesting whether it was true, we have to assume its true. I heard so many variations on it. We have to wait until the justices that were all involved papers. Ee their it is to some extent a footnote about the real story which is the court upheld the obama care decision. The question of whether they changeled his or her vote, so what. Often. O that the story was that the chief justice changed his vote. That was wrong, how dare he . Ideological ertain that the chief justice this is scotus blog fodder. His is fascinating for those who care about the internal membering nations of the court. We dont try to find out the of the court. Thats what the court does. Its structurally set up that way. I mentioned earlier the people who would know this would be a very small number. The justices themselves and he the law clerks who, in essence, take orders not to talk about this. Some years later will talk about it. Some will never talk about what they did when they were law clerks. The whole sort of engine that drives leaks and other government institutions is completely different. There are motives for leaks. You leak something because you want to shoot something because you think is going to happen. You leak something because you want to basically, you know, get its there and see how going to go. Test it out, launch a trial balloon. You leak just to say i know something you dont know. Nd then enhance your credibility. Most of those things that drive leaks and god bless them, we ill give my number in a moment, just arent Supreme Court. Are there perils to the press stories m reporting like this . No, not would say really. Individual journalists offend justices individually. Guess what the journalists and watch o sit in the Supreme Court work. Hey dont lose their parking privileges or anything like that. So they dont really pay a price for it. Johnny . One thing about the supreme if you ess corps is cover the white house and annoy could be cut you out and your sources will disappear. But at the Supreme Court, you have no sources to start with. The justices dont at a you can to you. They talk to some of us sometimes. We have lunch with the chief justice once a year which is up from once every two years under rehnquist. Were making progress. Still, the norm is that you justices. K to the theres no privileges that they can withdraw from you to punish leak. R a the only downside is the is that publishing its wrong. Nd then youll embarrass yourself. I want to turn to amy. Would you run it on xoe pulls blog . Scotus blog. To dont know the answer that. I think we would. Ans story came straight jan said to her editors, weve someone raight from with the specific deliberations and theyve been working for jan years. Working with lyle for years, she said this is legitimate, we want to run it. Wed say yes. John . We have to distinguish kind and what lyle does. Passing a very strong one. Quintessential independent journalist. Lyle has the power to write blogs g at all on the that he wants. He gets no real editorial and me. Lishing oversight from because i have such a relationship. Its very important because i the iced in front of Supreme Court that lyle not feel any constraints. Lyle has any d if constraints, you should see the story about my oral arguments which are, one would say, not glowing. So, yes, unqualifiablely, if yle had the story, we would have run the story. The puzzle is if i had the story, would we have run it. The answer is no. Thats an interesting dilemma. I have known with some decent regularity when the court was going to do things ahead of time as pete says. Lmost never as the result of a conscious leak. Theres not the culture of leaking at the Supreme Court. The costs are too high. The relationships with the press corps and people inside the building are too thin and too ew agendas that would benefit rather than being harmed by leaking. Anomaly. He we do almost no reporting at all. Lyle likes to look at the briefs, listen to the oral arguments and think about them. The kindno interest in personalities, machinati machinations, that kind of thing, because hes a unique one. The journalistic matter is he never gets interference on what to write about. The justices and more than 40 of their law clerks. The interviews are a not for attribution basis. But without t quoting directly or identifying the source. Ony, how does he get access to clerks and justices . Is it because hes writing books. Hes not dealing with breaking news . I think thats part of it. Justices will talk to book wont justthey a beat reporter. So thats one advantage. It if rks will also do their justice lets them or gets permission. The fact that its the new yorker may be a factor. Theres a theres another factor that i guess you could call it the woodward and bernstein factor has to do with he fact that woodward and bernstein got all of their scoops about watergate, but they werent supreme they werent white house reporters. Reporters. Ocal beat sometimes you have to come in from the outside to get scoops like that. He drops in for specific arguments. Daily nse, hes not presence at the court and ometimes that gives you an advantage in gaining access to the justices. It have anything to do with the distance of time as you out,two or three more years people are willing to talk. That helps too. Es sometimes interviewed justices for some fairly realtime stories in the new yorker. And sometimes the justices are not too happy about it. But, yeah, justices do have to a he call of history degree. They do talk to scholars and authors about whats happened in the past. Insight into relationships . Bob woodward was the first to brethren, th the shocked the Supreme Court with a lot of inside stuff about how and this pened there, is still woodwards standard that he has eement with his sources in the several books hes written about the books hite house or the he wrote about military. Rules are that hell interview them, but that they cant the material cant be used until the book comes out. He cant rush something into the Washington Post column. So i think when you approach a justice that way, and remember, its a book, youre not going to be writing about a decision that youre ome out yet, so writing about the past, help us understand that. One of the things that he charts in the book youre talking about courts very e mportant decision on whether labor eunice and corporations can use their own money as but ed to setting up pacs, use their own money to spend independent of candidates to upport a candidate and political party. The socalled Citizens United decision. Citizens united came in an odd way. A question of hether a paid broadcast or political documentary about Hillary Clinton would be viewed cable, counted as a kind of an election message law banned in certain blackout periods before elections. Question of iginal Citizens United. What he wanted to do is how did hat turn into the Citizens United decision about how the huge thing that shifted the ground under Campaign Finance legislation. So he wanted to know how did that work for the court. Downs. Re the ups and you know, even when you publish a book like that and have sources, you hear from other justices who say, it was a good book but i think jeff was wrong about one point. Because in the main, he was writing a book. Supreme Court Reporters stay on the beat for a long time. Believe, has i been there for 55 years. My, do you worry about him getting too close to the institution. I dont think so. Especially with lyle. Lyle calls them as he sees them. On he prides himself being because he prides himself on being independent, editor and ublisher, but also his hes not somebody whos out interviewing sources and the justices. And so i think he probably has the same distance i dont think that probably he has changed at all over the years. And attitude ance is the same one he had 50 years ago. That he wants to call it as he sees it. Tony, do you think pete is too close to the institution . No, i dont think so. And i think that just to add o what amy said, i think part of it is this is the advantage talking to the press. Talkinge little use for to the press. But therefore they do not buddybuddy ind of relationships that some eporters have with members of congress or with other other officials. Think we end up ing, you know, drinking the koolaid quite as quickly. Uying into everything is something that we do. Theres something built in in ence that makes it easier for us to stay on longer and not compromise. Most to avoid on capture, therell be a rotation. On the beat. Y limited exceptions. The a. P. Will route people through. The question of capture is less prominent. Theres no one youre talking to you. Pture the other side of the equation is its a complicated body of things to write about. Its difficult to drop someone in the Supreme Court and say have at it. T takes people a while to understand the pace, the rhetoric is so different. A large people with body of influence. Most institutions have concluded worried about people veness. Their aggressi whether we become beholden to the utility e lose as independent challengers of to, the institution is up they understand that much better. We can talk all day about whether the Supreme Court is political. It is fundamentally not a political branch. These people are appointed for life. It is not like the congress. The sort of push and pull day to day stuff that you want to insulate yourself from if you are covering an executive Branch Agency or the white house. It doesnt really apply in the Supreme Court. Fundamentally, the court is either going to uphold the defense of marriage act or it isnt. Andcan look at the votes what the justices say about why they did and what they did, it is right in front of you. Votes of question the someone in the Cabinet Department why they did you can see didnt, what Antonin Scalia said right there. You can look at his reasoning and challenge him on that because he is putting it right out in front of you. , oneis one difference danger that doesnt really exist in the Supreme Court is becoming beholden to the institution in a way that the fangs you. In a way that defangs you. I dont know how many of them watch nbc news or read what tony but yes, of them, course they do. I think they care about their press. We have heard about them. They are human beings areas of the justices really are. Sensehington you have a that the president is inured. The justices have gone through the crucible of the appointment process which is horrible. Up stuff about you. That is turned into a real political process. These people value their reputations. They grew up in a state occupation. There used to being praised not harshly criticized and now they are in some small part of the world at the center of the universe. People are writing a lot about their big decisions. You can believe that they are aware of what is written about them and take it quite personally. Justice thomas says he doesnt read any newspaper except the Dallas Cowboys fan newspaper. Usually brings them up to date about what is being written about him. Said, once in a call from a get a Public Information office. This is how its done. And the officer says you wrote such and such the other day. Are you sure that is correct . I will be reprimanded and i know it is coming from upstairs, from the justices. Sometimes you make a change, sometimes you dont. That is about the only ive never gotten a call directly from a justice saying that was a terrible thing you wrote. You get it indirectly. Have books to sell, justices rarely give interviews. Justice ginsburg has a message. She will come sure house if you have a garden party. She is not leaving. She wants everyone to know she is staying on the Supreme Court. She has been doing interviews like mad to get that point of view out. Why arent there more interviews like this . They dont have a message to get out. If they did, they would. There are some justices who know if they stick their neck out and are interviewed they will get some questions that they dont want to answer. That is another factor. I was able to once interview Justice Alito because i know he is a Philadelphia Phillies fan. Phillies had just won the they hadnt won the world series, but they had done well. So i asked to interview Justice Alito about the phillies. Got a call from Justice Alito saying be here at noon tomorrow and we talked about the phillies. While i was there, i said while i have you. I was able to make a little bit of news. But that hasnt happened lately. I think Justice Alito has joined the crowd of justices who dont talk. For one thing, they dont need to. They have Lifetime Appointments and they dont need to renew them through us. They do make themselves accessible. They dont do interviews for it often except when they have books out. One out. Hasnt won os calledraordinary book is my beloved world. They do a lot of they appear before bar groups and the aclu will put on something and we can question them in those forums, but they dont do interviews very often because he dont want to and they dont have to. Lesse the justices accessible today than in earlier eras . I would say no. I would say more so. Partly because a lot of them are writing books, but i think generally they are more out there, more talking to law school audiences. They always did that, but theyre used to be able to come and go without being noticed. Not every justices speaking to law school audience, youre going to read about it on media. Feeds or local generally they are more accessible. I think they generally take the cue from the chief justice on that. Rehnquist didnt like it, berger didnt like it, roberts is a little less fearful of the he has not although been giving interviews lately, either. Thekept thinking that younger justices came on the court who grew up in the television age, they would be more willing and eager to , which isat medium not exactly a new media many more, but that generally has not been the case. One thing has to be said about cspan, which is a lot of justices can be seen in their appearances at law schools and other forums like that through cspan. Fred graham famously said only the vatican and the cia were less interested in press coverage than the Supreme Court. Is this still true . That may be true, but i have always said that the vatican and the cia are very interested in their press coverage. The vatican has a press office. So does the cia have a press office. And maybe times have changed since the days when fred was covering during the times when he was hovering for cbs or for the New York Times. Think, again, because it is not a Political Institution in the justices are appointed for life, the day today up and down Public Institution credibility of the court is not something they follow it closely, but they do care about it. And i just disagree with that now. I think that is no longer the case. The court has no actual power other than its power to persuade. One consequence of that is that there is great value to them in their oracle like standing in our culture. That is the Supreme Court said in bush versus gore that the recount is done. That ruling in a lot of cultures and a lot of years would have resulted in riots. But in the United States it was simply accepted. On some level, despite interested in books or whatever, thes recognized justice is recognized. They detract from the sands in the nation that they are a group that objectively articulates the law so i do think they like their privacy on some level. They like the fact that they can go around and be in the Community Without having to have overwhelming security that a lot of government officials have to have. The institution itself depends on the idea that it is not just whoincidence of 19 people could you describe your efforts to get press credentials and why that has been unsuccessful . Sure. This has been another incident in which the court has been relatively ok. They have been thinking about this for a while. The history of this is that the blog originally asked to be credentialed in the Supreme Court. We were told we needed to have said russ credentialed. The senate would not credentials and it we were lawyers took us a while to convince him that we want the kind of lawyers that were trying to lobby the senate. To be perfectly honest, the Tipping Point for us getting a senate race venture was the peabody. In the wake of the peabody it became the Senate Press Gallery which is essentially a private organization which the credential institution has been turned over, took us more seriously and they were willing to credential us. They credentialed glial as a reporter. We went back to the court and mentions, the a court which had had his policy that says if youre credentialed , then said we are reevaluating our practices and we will be back in touch with you. I checked in with him recently and they said they were still working on the process. I dont think that they are trying to write a policy the write a policy that excludes us. They have actually gone out of their way to accommodate us. I think that the court, like a lot of institutions or places in the government are trying to figure out what to do with media. What is it mean if youre credentials that doesnt seem right. How do you draw the line . That imlso the fact the publisher. Amy is no longer in the law firm so we have been trying to move the blog to independence. Im the publisher and i am in the law firm. What do you do about that . What you do about someone who is practicing . Do need to adopt a special rule their . The truth of the matter is, the world doesnt turn on the answer to this question because the court does not create obstacles to covering the Supreme Court. If this was a question of getting a White House Press credential so we couldnt physically get into the white house, that would be one thing. For us, but is it that this cream court press corps gets . They get preferential seating on the side of the court during the arguments. Hey get guaranteed access they give conference lists of the cases that will be considered. You can actually get that through Supreme Courts docket. It is more a question of and i do think it is significant in the sense the Supreme Court is a signal or to other institutions. Its decision about whether blogs deserve recognition is for that reason significant. Also has First Amendment implications. The court is aware that if we are eventually denied a credential we will sue. Scotus blog versus scotus. I have said facetiously that i would like to sue because of that title. We are committed to the principle that we deserve it, and they will decide whatever they think is right. There is a lot of debate that we belong on the right side of the line. The question of where to draw the line, they have to create a policy. So it is a challenge to them to draw a line that is sensible. Ofcan get many thousands visits from inside the building every day. The chief justice wrote two things that were published on the blog. Not that he was in any way giving a special consideration, but they happen to be things he was writing about very simple tributes. He wouldve done it for the people. It is clear that it is not in a disfavored situation in the court. It will be fascinating to see how it is they work through this. Is just not an institution that moves quickly. That is one of the difficulties, but it is one of its great features. The Supreme Court does not change a lot and that is all to the good. I dont know if these guys who are in institutions that have credentials the only thing i would add to that is, number one, the Supreme Court has a different policy about press passes than others. I dont know how many passes nbc radio tvin the senate gallery, i would guess 100 or 200. All of our crews have them, the sound people, the camera people, the technicians, our producers, our correspondents. Anybody who ever goes and covers a hearing gets a Congressional Press credential. Every News Organization that covers the Supreme Court gets one. There is one hard pass for nbc news and i have it. There arent going to be anymore for nbc news. It is a different they really restrict the number of heart passes that allow us easy access essenceourt, in guarantee us a seat, which is tremendously important for us because theres no other way to get that if youre not in the courtroom. You cant listen to the audio until friday. You cant do the transcript until late in the day. Theres just no substitute for being there. That is valuable to us. Somebodynt mean that from the atlanta constitution cant come up and hear an argument because they do give out good for one day only paper passes as well, but im saying number one, the court has a different policy about press passes. They tend to restrict it. Is, theyrehing saying ok if we give it to scotus blog, how do we say that scotus blog is different than every other jason in the basement in his underwear who wants a press pass . Theyre going to have to drop those rules. The court does not allow reporters to use Electronic Devices in the court room, so in this sketch we have in the andground Nina Totenberg Robert Barnes from the Washington Post. When they are in the courtroom, there incommunicado. That means they cant communicate to the editors, they cant post or anything like that. Other journalists are in the pressroom. Theyre able to receive the opinion as it is announced and file it at that point. Setting aside the issue of cameras in the courtroom, was the outlook for reporters using Electronic Devices in the courtroom . Will there between from the courtroom . I really cant conjure that up in my mind. Courts are allowing it and it has turned into even federal courts have allowed tweeting from inside, but i just dont see it at the Supreme Court. There is a discrete sets of the corpsman history. They think that would mess things up. Law tot against the tweak . That therethinking should be a you would lose your press pass. Just a citizen would be in their. They do very careful searches of people going in. I once accidentally took my phone in my back into the court and the police missed it. I could have gotten a call while i was arguing in front of the Supreme Court and then id have plenty of time on my hands to talk about these issues. They physically search it and they go into each and every pocket and sometimes itll open because ofstick miniaturization so much can be done. The more i hear this, the more i am hoping that it is done soon. What youre all saying is there is a tradition of maintaining a mystique that forbids any engagement of personality of the people who are making judgments that affect the lives and wellbeing of majors of the countrys institutions. They are sacrosanct against any time of invasion. The press corps is completely complicit in that is fine by you. But we have a new technology that lets us radically rethink what is the story. I dont think it is going to stand. I dont think any of you should behave differently, but i am pr profession as a there are people in washington who know that in public were get solid that information because people dont want to be the one whose colleagues to find the story. They will be spilling their guts to. Heremaking a prediction pervasive media environment will overwhelm this set of really arcane prohibitions. It was a Major Development in five or six years ago the Supreme Court allowed the audience to bring in a piece of paper to take notes. Because we are a university, we like the Free Exchange of ideas. Let me offer a contrary view. Late great guiding genius behind 60 minutes who was a pioneering producer at cbs news used to say, we can get cameras to the moon. Do we really have to have cameras everywhere . Does everything benefit from Television Coverage . He was talking about cameras in the courts and cameras in the Supreme Court heard he said this is a guy who practically invented television news, was one of the pioneers maybe its not so bad we dont have cameras everywhere. The contrary view to what you just said would be this that a Supreme Court argument or Supreme Court decision benefits maybeome thought that doesnt come out in 160 characters within five seconds of it happening. Whether it is a good thing or not to allow it tweeting from the court, from the Supreme Court, there is something to be said about a reflective moment. What does it mean . What is the significance of it before you speak . That oury, it may be society has long since made the decision that those things are not as valuable as instantaneous i have but again complicated views about Television Coverage in the Supreme Court because i have sat there so often and thought, oh my heavens. If my fellow citizens could just see this. It is so impressive, it is so inspiring. Youd be so proud of this institution of the Supreme Court if you could see it for yourself and realize how really good oral argument is. Maybe, but onses, the other hand it presents challenges to me as a Television Correspondent not to have it and different challenges if i did. I have often thought the justices are concerned about it for a lot of really good and some not so good reasons. And i think you have put your finger on the basic point. To some extent the Supreme Court is afraid of this change. Either they have the mystique to declare george bush president forite the count in florida they dont and there might be riots in the streets because an ex question would be perhaps it might have decided differently. Im not even saying it would be good or bad, im saying that pressure is there. I think that it is not just the , it ise of visual media the pressure the wonderful pressure which i think its a real achievement of scotus blog, it is a database following a story over a. Of time. Over a period of time. Journalism is about telling the story in the most authoritative way. Form,ou get a new media you get to think what is his story . So it is interesting that this question arose. Maybe we should be covering other things if we had more access and then the other how do you honor the of theity of the part procedural part of the court which is the focus . Im not saying you should call im calling attention to the two ways in which changing the media changes what we take for granted about what is the story. If you had a press pass and you were in the press room one floor below the courtroom, the audio is piped in and you could tweet from there. No, you could not. You cant tweet from the press room. You could file on the internet, correct . No. I have not done this. I usually cap the opinion and run outside. My sense is there was an overflow room for one of the arguments. I dont know if you had your electric vices and there. I think were talking about slightly different rooms. G 37 or whatever it is, the room where the opinions are handed , no Electronics Devices are allowed in there. You can take the opinion, go out of that room while your listing to the audio, you cant be in that room with Electronic Devices. You cant in real time theres no place in the Supreme Court where you can receive and aboutbute information what is being said in the courtroom except that i suppose you could stand outside the door to g 37 and hear the ambient. Ound in which case they would change the rule and close the door. They do not want realtime distribution of that piece of information. What theyre afraid of is that somehow the audio of what is happening in the courtroom would be broadcast or put on the internet. They dont want that. The Institutional Press is there and they would know and people would get in trouble and lose their hard pass. They are not interested in ing sure people have theres a sameday transcript just a couple hours after the oral argument. Theyre not interested in turning themselves into an astitution that is really that ise breaking news personalized about them. They want to be separate and distinct and different because of the and they have all these rules about the koran is actually very important to their credibility and the strength of the decision that they have this moral force. Online and get the transcript of oral argument. What you cannot get online is the transcript of the bench announcement among the justices come and announcer opinions. In the very old daisies to read these all the way through. Thank god they dont do that anymore. But the summarizer opinions and sometimes if there are strong dissenters will air their views. Sometimes theres a lot of passion the way justice will summarize his or her opinions. Theres oftentimes even more passion in the way the dissenter will summarize their dissent. I would love to get that in my piece. So we have asked for that. We have been told no. Here is the reason. The explanation we get is this. That the fiveself justices sign onto, striking down the defense of marriage act, that already opinion, theyre all happy with it, theyre all gone back and forth with it. They know it is going to say, their names on it and they agree with it. Idea if Justice Kennedy, for example, is writing the doma decision. The other justices who signed on have no idea what youre going to say or how he is going to explain it, what emphasis is going to put on certain points. That not signed onto that. They dont want that out there as though he is speaking for the court. Speakingthing that is for the court is the opinion itself. That is the reason they give us for why we cant get the audio of the hand down. I understand that point of view, but i would still love to have it. Is not off the record. They say it in the courtroom, it is written down by people and then repeated. The court did not permit audio of it and certainly does not permit video of it. It actually does release audio. It releases the audio at the end of the term. You cant get the hand down audio. They told me know. Is on the internet. The stuff that goes to the offives . It gets plucked. The Court Releases it at the end of the term. It is out there, his actual information very it one should be honest, i think, that while there is a slight technical advantage to the court of not releasing audio until the end of , one principal consequence is that they are releasing the audio, but just late enough so that it is not useful in stories on reporting by the court. Question about that. Remember the whole releasing the audio jazz started with high profile cases including bush v gore, where so many of us including cspan asked for access to the audio and they did release it. They have done it maybe 10 times in the last couple of years. They dont do that anymore. Theyre probably not going to do it. Did used to be a cspan rule. When cspan that it was so important, they changed that. Theyre doing it a lot less than they used to. Look, were going to go you one better. Were going to release all the. Udio Court Experts and academics can hear it. But you are right, they do it when they open the valve and release all of the news value and it is completely useless, then it goes on the web. I just wanted to say, the net result of all of these arcane little customs and traditions the court evades one of the most important modernday forms of accountability of government restitution which is broadcast access. I think youre saying we let them get away with it and i guess we have. I have only been advocating cameras in court for 30 years, but it is less up to them. Congress doesnt have the will of the gumption to force it on this. The question is whether they have the ability to do it. We should look into tomorrow with a little pink camera and a microphone. It is the will. If only it were that simple. I will bring in a plastic recorderd it can tape and they will carry me out. Another illustration, i gave a brief list ration of the notepad. Ofelieve there are only one two known photographs in the entire history of photography of the Supreme Court actually in session where people snuck in cameras. Rule, theure of the way that they enforced a rule and our willingness to, dated i dont know if we want to talk about cameras, but it is fascinating the way we are a visual culture and would Supreme Court prevents that. Also the question of what would happen to the video . And what the concern is how the video would be used that makes it such a red line that cannot be crossed. Ill tell you what they think. One objection they have is that as the Supreme Court goes, so go the lower courts. They dont want to force all the federal courts to allow cameras in the courtroom, which would be the other Appellate Courts and , which raises a lot of issues about cameras in court. Is that now we get into lots of different explanations, depending on the justices you talk to. I truly believe that one motive is, despite the fact that they do more interviews now, they dont want to be hassled in the salad bar. To issue complicated decisions and not have to be constantly answering questions about them from people who go up to them on the street. They think that it would change the nature of oral argument. They think it would affect the performance of arguing counsel. I find that hard to believe myself if i am a lawyer for a case in which hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, i am thinking about persuading these nine justices, not how it is going to play on cspan. They also think, and Justice Breyer said this himself the last time the members of congress go up and argue for their budgets before congress, he said i worry i would change how i act. I would worry about, questions will play on Television Later and i might censor myself. I might not ask all the questions i was going to ask. Finally, Justice Scalias favorite objection is that all were going to see on television is snippets. That is true. I would point out to him that all you see in the New York Times are snippets. They happen to be in print and have around them. Guess what . They dont all this a transcript of every oral argument. Think what theyre concerned about is sitting down at home and watching jon stewart pull certain isolated parts of Supreme Court arguments and making fun of them. I think theyre truly worried after the oral arguments in the Health Care Case, republicans put out an ad featuring a solicitor general stumbling. You think this affects the attitudes among members of the court . I know it does. I know they were offended by that. But it was terribly unfair and i think you could damper over getting one of the many reasons well get a lot more audio than we do. Is my first reaction. Thats what the cause back 10 years. And understand policy on becauseg sameday audio from 2000 to 2009 dated 21 times. Then they said theyre not than he do that anymore, with were going to release all the audio at the end of the week. Policy, wentthis back to this every now and then . E will release audio when they release audio for every case . They should. Adam think theres harmony heard when you cspan, they do it very carefully and faithfully make it available. Doesnt want to be in the position of saying that one case is more important than another. That is their claim. Linda greenhouse he began covering the court in 1978 described the leisurely pace that existed at that time where she would get an opinion and then got to lunch and study it and then file something early in the evening for the next days papers. With the web and cable tv today, there is an enormous and pernicious need for speed. Now reporters are also filing on multiple platforms, for example just brave and posted video on wall street journal. Com, pete you do things on the internet as well. How have these Communication Technologies changed the coverage of the court . Tremendously. Luckily some of us have the thaty of working at places dont put a high premium on being first with a tweed. I am lucky to be one of those. Still, we have to get something up online if it is a major case as soon as possible. One of the things i always tell a young supreme , whatever reporter is you do, dont forget to read the opinion. Obvious, think that is but it is so easy now to look at the syllabus. I usually go to the dissent because the dissent often tells you what is really important in the majority and then you can get a good idea if you just do it on the fly, but you really miss stuff if you dont sit down and read closeddoor read the whole thing. Herinda tells me predecessor had an even more leisurely and delivered of thing. He would go to the court, get opinions, go home, open a bottle experts call a few think about it and then write the story. So yes, times have changed. I cant sit in the Supreme Court room and hear the opinions announced anymore in big cases. I used to be able to do that before there was msnbc, the cable network. I cant do that anymore. Now with the cases i have to be standing outside standing outside understanding in the press room grabbing the opinion and reading it as a run outside or this last time i was standing. Utside there are these parallel universes. I am outside in this intensely competitive saying where seconds count in terms of bragging rights, who got it first. And my colleagues say Nina Totenberg from National Public radio is inside and she wont know for 20 more minutes what the Supreme Court has done with the Health Care Case. On the last year the term on the big ones come out, they dont always announce a big one first. They do it by inverse order of seniority. For the Health Care Case it took them a long time to finally get there. When the reporters who were in the courtroom came out, we had been hammering this thing out for almost an hour. There will be a moment in time where a justice in the courtroom will start announcing the opinion. At that moment downstairs the court will hand out the opinion. Have ownstairs can physically skim through the whole thing whereas in the courtroom it may take 20 minutes before chief Justice Roberts gets to the punchline of who won or lost. There is a distinct advantage to being in the room and that is your hearing the explanation that they have tried to make him up but there is a massive disadvantage because they dont hand out the opinions in the courtroom. As pete said, they announce an order of reversing yorty, said Justice Kennedy announces , alito andn of doma roberts also have the sense but they dont read from the bench, in which indicate that the court is going to rule on the standing. Ssue they are not going to decide whether prop eight is unconstitutional. Everyone is outside the courtroom noses almost immediately, meanwhile in the courtroom, Justice Scalia has to first announce his decision in a next your criminal case. The people who are in the for halfnt get an hour. This is been what the Wire Services live and die on ever since they started covering the Supreme Court. Started covering the court, the way it worked was a literally handed the decisions down from the bench. A copy went down. If are from upi rap or ap, theyrom upi or would stick it in a pneumatic tube and it would go down one floor below the bench where a reporter was waiting with one of those things that punched paper tape. They would start so this rush to get the Supreme Court decisions out quickly has always been the case, but only for a very few. Now it is for everybody. Covers the Supreme Court for a mainstream News Organization has to quickly get the decision out and through the day you keep updating and moving fresher or deeper insights. When i started covering the Supreme Court we didnt have a there just werent that many of those major decisions. Have the audience, we microphones here for anyone would like to step up and ask questions. I have been scrubbing all morning. I am happy to be here. Am not a student i am one of the public that you always invite to these things. We speak of doing a public good, it makes me feel like more of a
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.