How Far We Have Fallen.

I can't believe the NYT would upset the apple cart by running a "leaked" U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion. 

That's what happens when you elevate a publisher whose Daddy got him the job after he graduated from Brown.  Betcha half that staff now has never taken a journalism ethics class in their lives...

"All the News We Can Beg, Borrow or Steal... Today!"  I mean, it was one thing when Mary Trump let loose confidential documents.  Proudly.

But this isn't even news...  I don't assume either that a real person "leaked" this.  (Those poor innocent clerks -- you know at least some of them are -- oh, the finger-pointings that will likely go on... tomorrow!)

With everybody tied to computers now, I assume anything can can be "hacked" or leaked.

The thing is... I don't think it will work, but that the Court will likely... DOUBLE DOWN on not letting a Huge Unaccountable Fourth Estate affect their work.  They are not a political branch.  Repeat after me?  THE COURT IS NOT A POLITICAL BRANCH.  Never were,

If Kavanaugh, Alito, Gorsuch, Coney-Barrett, THOMAS (who should rightly be Chief... are we allowed to say that yet?), and Roberts ... hell, even Breyer!, it's that egregious a "leak" really... have to pick up their pencils and take their notepads home with them under lock and key daily, then I suspect they'll do it.

The COURT must be respect.  The Ccurt's independence must be respected.  The current Supreme Court justices have all taken an ethics class themselves, and understand fully the issues with making decisions based on public pressure:  it's the same reason why you cannot negotiate with terrorists...

Once they got you, they got you.  And you know it.  And they know it.

Heads should be rolling tomorrow too, at the NYT.  Whoever made the decision to hit the publish button on this story has less scruples, ethics and journalism standards that those poor unknown Twitter content moderators even, who chose to allegedly ban The New York POST for breaking the news story about the Hunter Biden laptop story because... (wait for it__) "our practice is not to permit coverage of news stories with 'leaked' sources..."  They refused to be an outlet for that, their policy practices say.

(The trouble there wasn't with the policy so much, but how it was being unequally enforced:  Twitter permitted the 'platforms' of other news organizations, and Twitter accounts, to stay up after leaked documents -- like presidential niece Mary Trump's previous "gift" to the NYTimes -- were trumpeted on the platform..._)

Friends, we are in a BRAVE NEW WORLD of professional ethics here:  both in the journalism trenches (I am so glad I am not bedded down with this current corps of people) and in our American legal circles (it's worth fighting for independence, confidentiality, and "gentlemanly" standards of professional practice, judges and clerks:  make no mistake.)  Oh, to be on an accredited university campus as a solid professional leader teaching the ETHICS classes now...

God bless all who labor for something more than a paycheck then.  Tomorrow really matters:  how our institutions CHOOSE to respond to this egregious act of hacking/leaking/PUBLISHING.  Shame on The New York Times...

Tell me:  does A.G. Sulzberger yet have a son -- like Charles has William -- who is old enough to take his father's place on the Throne -- should it be decided that the father is not fit to sit?  Is this Dean Baquet's final GIFT to the people he serves, with him thinking... "I'm halfway out the door; nothing to lose now by agreeing to run this sneak-preview-NON-news-story... just because WE CAN?

With degrees in both professions -- Northwestern Medill 1990 and University of Madison Law 2005 (not too dumb to get admitted to law school after undergrad; I just WAITED until I could afford the doctorate degree and worked my way through the journalism-slog post '90 as a white woman working independently in an ever-evolving field to get there...) -- I really cannot emphasize strongly enough RIGHT NOW how upsetting the apple cart tomorrow's paper is to both professions.

If you lose your respect for ETHICAL practice, what have you?  If you sell your soul to sell papers today, what becomes of your reputation.  And most importantly for America's democracy -- a question that has been roiling in our justice circles up here in Minnesota, which you can educate yourself about by merely reading Derek Chauvin's recent appeal of his criminal case --

If you expect the courts or the Court (there's a reason we cap that C, friends...) to be influenced, politically, by public opinion/pressure, whether it be true riots in the streets (complete with burning down government instituions and make no mistake, what happened in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020 makes Jan. 6 in DC look like a kiddie play party), you got another think coming...

In the end, I suspect, the only true change that will be created by the leaking -- and PUBLISHING! -- of Justice Samuel Alito's "pre-opinion" drafts in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization will be to solidify the Court's overall stance that the Court of Public Opinion is not the place for these decisions in American democracy to be made:  the State Legislatures are, same as it ever was...

Personally, I'd like to see a unanimous decision to underscore that point, for the good of the country, like was done with Brown v. Board.  Hell, even Kagan (former Harvard Law prof) and Sotomayor (wise latina scholar) understand this importance...

(Egad!, it just occured to me, however fleeting a thought:  you don't suppose one of those two eminences leaked to the Times?  You see, that is the problem with playing journalism games like this:  in the end, all the formerly esteemed paper has down is to sow distrust in our formerly great institutions by publishing the pre-decision draft.  They won't get the change -- the paper's poor leadership won't -- they were hoping to accomplish, but they will make certain that America has another burning social issue tossed into the fire -- like fetal remains to dispose of really, so many little American lives snuffed out so early, for 50 years now (*bowed head here*) in this cruelly cold spring of our discontent when a good part of the country is simply struggling onward, through the latest "bug" to hit, with prices of daily necessities (food, gas, shelter) out of control.

Good job, NYTimes, is this what you were going for?  To try and divide and destroy, and thereby strengthening our national democracy by making sure this issues land right back in the laps of our State Legislatures, as the Constitution intends?  

If so, congrats, you did it.  Overstepped your role so that not only with this decision, but will so many others, the Court will make certain that the Decision-Making is returned to Voters of the Various States to decide the important moral and ethical issues even in the far-flung territories whose people and practices were once so important in not only building but populating our country?

If you think I'm over-reacting, waking up now to read this news story myself, you don't understand what is at play in this publication decision, I don't think.  (and yes, while I am not a rich woman, the thinking parts at 54 years of age are in their prime!)  At least this ethical earthquake should have the current practitioners of journalism, whoever they landed their platforms, with copy fodder for weeks to come...

Will Democracy Die in Darkness then, or will We the American People, smart citizens, push back at that flack paper saying, enough is enough.  You've overstepped?  Enough!!

I suspect the latter myself.  And you know something, I've a track record of getting these things right.  No income or homefires built up to show for it, my ethics professors would award an A for my career service, I think, and in my heart, I know my soul is still pure as the day I was born and conceived an American by birthright.  If you don't understand what I am talking about fully in this posted column online, hit the books, you!  

What you've got they can't deny it

Can't sell it, or buy it

Walk on, walk on

Stay safe tonight!

And I know it aches

And your heart it breaks

And you can only take so much

Walk on...

=======

~U2

ADDED: Swear to God, friends, that I finished writing what I had to say here, and hit publish without looking at the clock.  That it published at 1:01 CST is simply telling of what, ethically, this decision means for both professions.  This is what happens when you too quickly elevate non-scholars who have no business being in the leadership positions they are in.  I suspect, were Jill Abramson still at the helm, that draft SCOTUS opinion never would have seen the light of day, and rightly so.  You kill stories, not babies.

And if you don't share my opinion that life begins at conception and the pre-born are babies, well of course that is your right to think that way, to vote that way, and to hold that opinion.  If you are in the majority in your individual state, that will become the law.  But in other regions, where ethics and morals vary based on a pioneer-history more pragmatic view/defintion of LIFE, you have to learn in America to accept and respect other people's opionions too, for better or worse.   Other peoples, other voices, other rooms... other states, other laws.  Back to the Future, then.

(If you "borrow" any of my specific phrasings here in your own future work, damn well better credit Mary E. Glynn, Esq. an online writer on the blogger platform, Subsumed... Resumed.  I'd prefer you don't:  recycle my work specifically, and instead work to understand what I have written here, and then explain it on your platform, to your readers, using your own words however paltry in comparison.  Ethically, that is right and just.  Even in our days of leaky hacks, Ethics Matter.  In the end really, when we draw our final breaths all of us, that's really all we've got...  Think about it, even you elites in the Leisure Classes?)

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* Putting on a pot of coffee then, to make it a long night here as the "reviews" of this story roll in...

It really is that important what the consequences of this decision to publish are.  Worth losing sleep over, and I don't say that often...

HOT TAKES, then (either you get it, or you don't). Bump it to the top, people: "pin it" up high...):

MAY 2, 2022

THE DOBBS SUPREME COURT LEAK: “There’s such a lack of confidence in institutions, and this leak will only serve to make matters worse. This is a bullying move. The Court should not succumb to bullies.”

210
Posted at 11:49 pm by Glenn Reynolds   

May 2, 2022

“Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows.”

Politico reports with a link to a long draft opinion of the Court written by Justice Alito.

This is so shocking I have difficulty believing it’s real. The top of NYT is blithe coverage of the Met Gala, replete with a photo of Hillary Clinton in a shiny vivid red dress... 

Posted by Ann Althouse at 8:27 PM 76 comments