Wrong Fishing

ProPublica published an article on Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito taking luxury fishing trips with a billionaire that he did not report and who had cases before the court that he did not recuse himself from. Alito did not like ProPublica that was doing the piece…not…one…bit. So, Alito wrote a reply to ProPublica’s report. There are two very strange unorthodox things about his reply.

First, his reply was in a rival publication, The Wall Street Journal. Second, it was published in the Journal BEFORE ProPublica ran its report. Alito didn’t play this like a federal judge with a lifetime appointment. No, he played this like a politician. Politicians try to get ahead of negative stories about them. In this instance, readers of the Journal’s opinion page where the reply ran, did not have the opportunity to read ProPublica’s report first. How did Alito know about the ProPublica piece before it ran? Because ProPublica notified him asking for a comment.

The reply in the Journal ran with the headline, “Justice Samuel Alito: ProPublica Misleads Its Readers.” Sure, that’s Alito claiming ProPublica is misleading its readers, but how did the editors of the Journal know this to be true, by taking Alito’s word for it?

In The New York Times: Stephen Engelberg, the editor-in-chief of ProPublica, said, “We’re curious to know whether The Journal fact-checked the essay before publication. We strongly reject the headline’s assertion that ‘ProPublica Misleads Its Readers,’ which the piece declared without anyone having read the article and without asking for our comment.”

Bill Grueskin, a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and a former news editor for The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the Journal could not have fact-checked Alito’s reply to the ProPublica piece since it hadn’t run yet.

He said, “Justice Alito could have issued this as a statement on the SCOTUS website, but the fact that he chose The Journal and that the editorial page was willing to serve as his loyal factotum says a great deal about the relationship between the two parties.”

Rod Hicks, the director of ethics and diversity for the Society of Professional Journalists (disclaimer: I have talked to Mr. Hicks in the past about journalism ethics), said “It’s quite uncommon for a news outlet to allow an official to use its platform to respond to questions from a different outlet.”

He also said “It’s totally unheard-of to post that response before the other outlet even publishes its story,” he added. “If not ethics, professional courtesy should have restrained The Journal.”

I have issues with the lack of ethics from Alito and his colleague, Clarence Thomas over taking such huge lavish gifts from billionaires, but also with the lack of journalism ethics on the part of the Journal. Shame on them.

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion page should be calling out Alito and Clarence Thomas for their lack of ethics and corruption, not being lapdogs in their defense.

The integrity of The Wall Street Journal is starting to resemble that of Rupert Murdoch’s other media properties.

And all the Republicans who keep claiming that President Biden has accepted bribes without proof will fail to even look at this.

Creative note: I spent five hours this morning on another cartoon and then shelved it. Why five hours? Easter eggs galore. You know you want to see it.

Music note: I listened to Prince.

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