the media and Alito

[Karen]

MEDIA
Unfair and Unbalanced

The Supreme Court confirmation proceedings for Samuel Alito are of incredible importance. As Judiciary Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) noted on Monday, "No senator's vote, except for the declaration of war or the authorization for the use of force, is more important than the confirmation of a nominee for the Supreme Court for a lifetime appointment." Alito's potential confirmation will directly impact the lives of millions of ordinary Americans. Given these high stakes, one would expect our major media to make a determined effort to cover the hearings accurately, fairly, and substantively. They have not. As the record below shows, coverage of the hearings this week has been beset by inaccuracies, falsehoods, and a lack of balance.

IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING ACCURATE TO SAY...: Coverage of the Alito hearings has been rife with inaccuracies. On CNN, viewers caught analyst Jeff Greenfield repeating the false claim that Judge John Roberts had not referred to the Roe v. Wade decision as "settled law" during his Supreme Court hearing when in fact he did. (This line was being used to defend Alito, who actually did refuse to call Roe "settled law" in his testimony.) On MSNBC, scrolling onscreen text "falsely suggested that Alito was in the majority in the Bray v. Marriott anti-discrimination case." (In fact, Alito dissented in the decision, which reversed a lower court's ruling on the case.) NBC correspondent Pete Williams falsely claimed that Alito "was following Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's precedent in his dissent in favor of spousal notification in an abortion-rights case," and that O'Connor subsequently "changed her mind." (Actually, O'Connor had never ruled on a spousal notification case when Alito wrote his opinion.) Meanwhile, NBC anchor Brian Williams, appearing on a radio show, crowed about how the right-wing National Review "had video refuting what [Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE)] said [during the hearings] with an earlier statement. I mean this Joe Biden thing was just unbelievable!" Asked what point of Biden's the National Review had refuted, Williams was speechless: "I am not sure exactly. ... Well, I am sorry. I don't have that."

THE RIGHT GUEST LIST: Media Matters documented coverage of the Alito hearings by NBC News. During its first four hours of coverage on MSNBC, the network featured interviews with Pat Buchanan, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), and Ed Gillespie, the White House adviser for Alito's nomination process. Not a single progressive critic was invited to comment. The network's prime-time coverage continued this trend, featuring Buchanan once again, "along with former Attorney General John Ashcroft, current RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, and former [Reagan] solicitor general Theodore B. Olson." Only two guests, author Edward Lazarus and Air America host Rachel Maddow, were critical of Alito. This pattern continued the following morning on NBC's Today show, which featured a single guest -- former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN), the White House adviser for John Roberts' nomination process -- in its report on the hearing.

MEDIA FOCUSES ON EMOTIONS, OVERLOOKS SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES: Since yesterday afternoon, media coverage has focused predominantly on Martha-Ann Alito's unfortunate, tearful exit from the hearings. While upsetting, this event should not have overshadowed the serious issues addressed yesterday that will have more far-reaching consequences, such as responses from Alito that left open the possibility he may vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. (To make matters worse, even when addressing Mrs. Alito's exit, the media couldn't get its facts straight.)


SUPREME COURT
Excuses, Excuses

After two days of questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee, many questions still remain unanswered about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. While Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said Alito has been not only "responsive, but...very forthcoming," the reality is that all of Alito's talking has contained little substance. "You know, we know very little more about Judge Alito now than we knew when the hearings began," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY). "He has talked in very broad generalities and said things that everyone would agree with and tells no one about his views." In his final day of testimony, Alito needs to stop his dodging and weaving tactics and be up front with the American public about his record.

AVOIDING QUESTIONS ON CRITICAL CASES: Alito, like Chief Justice John Roberts during his confirmation hearings, has refused to comment on his specific stance on abortion law because related cases are pending before the Supreme Court. "To do so [comment on abortion], he said, would be to say to future parties in abortion-related cases, 'If you bring your case before my court, I'm not even going to listen to you.'" But Alito doesn't seem fully committed to his strategy. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) pointed out, "You were willing to give your view on one man, one vote. And yet there are four case[s] pending in the court right now on one man, one vote. ... That's where I have a hard time. If you're willing to say that you believe one man, one vote is well settled and you agree with it, I have hard time understanding how you separate out Roe [and don't comment]."

RUNNING AWAY FROM THE PAST: Alito has continually tried to run away from 1985, instead of standing by his writings and actions. "You seemed to walk away from a lot of your own record," observed Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-WI). In a 1985 Justice Department job application Alito wrote, "I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." Even before the nomination hearings began, Alito tried to brush off his strong statements with weak excuses. In a 1985 memo to the Reagan administration's Solicitor General, Alito wrote that the current cases before the Supreme Court afforded them the "opportunity to advance the goals of overruling Roe v. Wade and, in the meantime, of mitigating its effects." Despite his own words in 1985, Alito has tried to convince senators that he never said them: "I did not advocate in the [1985] memo that an argument be made that Roe be overruled."

ALITO'S IGNORANCE DEFENSE: Alito has been unable (or unwilling) to answer senators' questions about his 14-year membership in a right-wing alumni organization, the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which advocated excluding women and minorities from the university. Alito listed his Concerned Alumni membership in a 1985 job application to the Reagan Justice Department. In this week's hearings, Alito has offered no legitimate explanations for his membership and has relied on the ignorance defense: "I have wracked my memory about this issue, and I really have no specific recollection of that organization." But not all senators are not buying Alito's faulty memory. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA)"expressed disbelief that Alito could recount details of each of his 67 dissents as a Third Circuit appellate court judge, but not his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton."

INCONSISTENCIES AND EXCUSES ABOUND: Alito has now offered three different reasons for his failure to recuse himself from a 2002 case involving the investment company Vanguard. Alito, who ruled in favor of the group, owned between $390,000 to $975,000 in Vanguard shares at the time and in his 1990 Senate confirmation hearings had promised to recuse himself from cases involving the company. Senators are becoming frustrated with Alito's excuses. "A number of us have been troubled by what we see as inconsistencies in some of the answers," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Alito has not clearly answered why he did not recuse himself in 2002, but he has given strong indication that he would not recuse himself from a case involving Vanguard if it came before the Supreme Court (and he continued to own shares in the company): "Well, under the Code of Judicial Conduct, I don’t believe that I am required to recuse myself in Vanguard cases." That answer contrasts with the answer he gave the day before, suggesting that in conflict of interest cases, his own personal standard is to "go beyond what the code of conduct for judges requires."