Dahlia Lithwick at  Slate questions whether it’s time to change the way the Supreme Court press corps reports, causing uproarious laughter to emanate from Rupert Murdoch’s Centre Island manse. Prodded by a comment from Jack Shafer, the question was motivated by the “changing of the guard” at the New York Times.

In the Web era, is the best use of the Times’ column inches the traditional day-after-oral-arguments story and the day-after-decisions dispatches? Is there a more creative way to report on the court? Should Liptak cover the court with more argument and greater point of view, the way he covers the law in his current Sidebar column? Whether dug-in journalists are excellent or mediocre, their departures give publications the opportunity to reinvent themselves.

Oh my.  Well, this is a rather scary proposition, isn’t it?

As previously discussed, Adam Liptak’s elevation to Supreme Court God is a  source of some concern for me.  But the idea that basic reporting of Supreme Court decisions be given the blessing to stray to the editorial strikes me as nuts.

Journalism has long left the realm of a dry recitation of the basic facts.  Whether because of our need to be entertained or our lack of basic ability to draw the facts from an article and formulate an opinion, we are fed a diet of cherry-picked information spun in a way to suggest right and wrong, good and evil, funny and stupid, from the outset.  But the fight has always been to keep straight journalism in line, challenging stories that are editorialized beyond the point of factual recognition.

While it can well be said that reporting already prevents us from questioning the content of the story, we still need to believe that we’ve been given the basics in a relatively trustworthy fashion.  When the New York Times story on the bullying of Billy Wolfe made the  decision to omit an entire side from the story, I was outraged.  After learning the ignored information, it barely made a dent in my thoughts on the subject, but the fact that I, the reader, was denied a full and accurate story was offensive.  Whether it’s the Times or the Post, I don’t care.

In the blawgosphere, there are often significant disagreements about the merits of Supreme Court news, reflecting our world views, relative worth of law versus order, freedom versus equality, whatever strikes us based upon the nature of the case.  But these discussions will be reduced to flights of fantasy if we do not have some reliable means of learning what happens down there in Washington.  True, we could all go watch the arguments ourselves, but then we would be very hungry since we would be unable to earn a living.

As for the rest of the world, less obsessed with doing in the law than blawgers, they too are entitled to a little straight poop on the Supremes.  Given how confused most non-lawyers are about the law, the current trend in reporting, making it readable for the “ordinary person,” already presents a substantial obstacle to the public understanding what is happening.  Reporters already “interpret” the complexities and “boil them down” to make their stories more comprehensible.  By definition, this means they filter their stories through their own vision, and inherently change them to conform with the reporter’s understanding.  What the Supreme Court does and says can be fairly important to our society.  It’s worth the effort to report it well and honestly.

I don’t trust information filtered through minds and hearts before it gets to me.  I may agree or disagree, but it’s still dubious information.  With the new golden boy in town, I’m even more afraid, since my view of his past work is that his understanding of the issues that most concern me is spotty at best.  As I’ve written here, there have been numerous instances where his depth of understanding didn’t scratch the surface.  Is this the best I can hope for in the future?  Not good enough.

Lithwick’s interest, in taking the expertise of the small group of Supreme Court journalists, and giving them rein to spread their word because they, more than anyone else, know the Supremes is a questionable proposition in the first place.  They may have their fingers firmly on the pulse of 9 people in D.C., but do they have the feel for the legal world everywhere else?  What do they know about how big words in Washington play out on the street, or in the courthouse hallways? 

There’s plenty of room on the editorial pages for opinions of all size and description.  If they want to wear their politics on their sleeve, as if they don’t already, that’s the place to do it.  But keep Supreme Court reporting straight.  At least as straight as we can.  At least try.

H/T Orin at Volokh.