From Justice Kennedy, a Lesson in Journalism

[nyc 4 Biden]

Source: NY Times

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: November 10, 2009

WASHINGTON — The school newspaper at Dalton, a private school in Manhattan, contained a cryptic note from its editors last Friday. “We are not able to cover the recent visit by a Supreme Court justice due to numerous publication constraints,” the note said. It promised “an explanation of the regrettable delay” in the next issue.

It turns out that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, widely regarded as one of the court’s most vigilant defenders of First Amendment values, had provided the newspaper, The Daltonian, with a lesson about journalistic independence. Justice Kennedy’s office had insisted on approving any article about a talk he gave to an assembly of Dalton high school students on Oct. 28.

Kathleen Arberg, the court’s public information officer, said Justice Kennedy’s office had made the request to make sure the quotations attributed to him were accurate. The justice’s office received a draft of the proposed article on Monday and returned it to the newspaper the same day with “a couple of minor tweaks,” Ms. Arberg said. Quotations were “tidied up” to better reflect the meaning the justice had intended to convey, she said. Ms. Arberg indicated that what had happened at Dalton was unusual. “Justice Kennedy does not have a general policy for making such requests,” she said. “The request was most likely made by a member of his staff in an effort to be helpful.” Justice Kennedy declined a request for an interview.

Ellen Stein, Dalton’s head of school, defended the practice in a telephone interview. “This allows student publications to be correct,” she said. “I think fact checking is a good thing.” ...

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/us/11dalton.html

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Great lesson in free speech. :sarcasm:

Before it goes to press the student who wrote the article should supplement the article to cover the hypocrisy of Kennedy's heavy-handed oversight.

[Joe Bacon]

1. That liar got away with it again.

If we only had Congressional leadership with enough backbone to impeach Kennedy, Thomas and Scalia for illegally installing Bush as President...

[asjr]

2. From the sound of it Kennedy was

doing his own copy-editing for grammar purposes. This is done all the time in publishing. I see nothing untoward in his thinking.

[MilesColtrane]

6. Really?

The subject of a news article gets to edit the story written about them.

Please shed more light on this common practice with any informative links you may have.

[asjr]

9. I used to be in the business and

editing is just one part of it. If I were to be published I would want to see the final copy to make sure it was correct. When I say correct I mean nothing spelled incorrectly and the proper punctuation used. It is no big deal.

[Demit]

3. Well, now. Was it "insistence" or was it a "request"?

This snip of the article presents it as both. So I clicked through & saw that the entire article treats a "demand" and a "request" as synonyms. I don't think they are. Bad writing & editing there.

[UpInArms]

4. bleh

that editor has no spine - should have told the "justice" to go cheney himself and printed the article as the reporter wrote it.

[tomm2thumbs]

5. 'allow me to confuse you with what I really meant to say...'

This is one of those lessons that should be taught in all schools - say one thing, do another from the top of the heap of hypocrisy.

[dballance]

7. Much Ado About Nothing - aka such bullshit

So a Justice of the Supreme Court asked to see what was going to be written about him before it was printed. Last time I checked good journalists actually let the subjects of their articles read the articles before they were printed. This allowed the subjects of those articles to respond to the article and provide context. That's actually fair and balanced as opposed to the the claims of "fair and balanced" by certain entertainment organizations parading as news.

So what's the big deal here? Justice Kennedy cannot prevent any newspaper from printing any story or opinion. I think this is another reich-wing campaign about nothing.

[Robb]

8. On what planet?

You do the interview, the reporter writes it up and it goes to press. There is no "Can I look at it before it goes to press?" in journalism.

I speak from experience that the few requests that came along like that were chuckled at, and it was politely explained that's not how it works.