Podcast / Contempt of Court / Jul 25, 2023

If You Want to Reform the Court, Reform the Media, Too

On this episode of Contempt of Court, Melissa Murray and Elie Mystal reflect on how the media discusses SCOTUS.

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Reform the Media | Contempt of Court with Elie Mystal
byThe Nation Magazine

The court ended its most recent term completely off the chain. Having already killed reproductive rights, it accomplished another longstanding conservative goal: banning affirmative action in college admissions. That's not even the half of it.

And yet, a lot of the mainstream media coverage suggested that the Court turned *moderate* and worked hard to achieve a mainstream consensus.

Why does the media keep feeding us this bullshit? Let’s talk about it.

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A television monitor shows Ketanji Brown Jackson, nominated for associate justice of the US Supreme Court by President Joe Biden, during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images)(Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The court ended its most recent term completely off the chain. Having already killed reproductive rights, it accomplished another longstanding conservative goal: banning affirmative action in college admissions. That’s not even the half of it.

And yet, a lot of the mainstream media coverage suggested that the court turned *moderate* and worked hard to achieve a mainstream consensus.

Why does the media keep feeding us this bullshit? Let’s talk about it.

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Elie Mystal

Elie Mystal is The Nation’s justice correspondent and a columnist. He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. His first book is the New York Times bestseller Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, published by The New Press. You can subscribe to his Nation newsletter “Elie v. U.S.” here.

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