Why Is The New York Times Expanding Its U.S. Supreme Court Coverage?
Is the liberal newspaper's quadrupling of its reporting staff on the U.S. Supreme Court beat legit or is it a stealth attack on the Court's conservative majority?
The federal court system historically was accorded extreme deference by the media which dutifully sat and waited for its press releases.
Moreover, the sheer complexity of the U.S. judicial system has made it almost unfathomable to most reporters.
A couple of years ago, I began writing about the system as a decentralized and secretive institution that is self-governed through a complex web of self-serving rules. I wrote about the institution’s failure to modernize and its lack of accountability to the public, especially with respect to judicial misconduct. I wrote about judicial corruption.
Today, the New York Times, which was once considered the most influential newspaper in America, announced that it is dramatically expanding the scope of its coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The NYT says that henceforth it will assign a team of four reporters to cover the Court, which, in the past, was only covered by one NYT reporter.
What prompted the NYT to suddenly increase its coverage of the Court at a time when other major newspapers are laying off staff. (As reported by the NYT and other media last month, the Washington Post is planning to layoff hundreds of workers.)
It could be that NYT editors closely follow my Substack. Maybe they were surprised to learn about the Court’s secrecy, lack of accountability, and corruption?
The Context
It seems more likely that the NYT, an ardent critic of Republican President Donald J. Trump, is broadening its coverage of the Court because it has proven more powerful than anticipated.
Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last year revealed that Democrats had packed the lower courts with ideological partisans to serve as a “bulwark” to thwart Trump. The strategy is failing.
The NYT noted Trump’s success in filing emergency applications to the Supreme Court to stay injunctions passed primarily by the Democratic-nominated lower court judges. At least three-quarters of Trump’s applications were approved, allowing his administration’s policies to remain in effect until the conclusion of litigation.
The NYT also focuses upon a series of important court decisions that were decided by the conservative majority.
