ProPublica did an investigation into a trip taken in 2008 by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito. A hedge fund billionaire who’s also a Republican party donor paid for the excursion.
ProPublica discovered that Alito did not declare the trip on his annual financial disclosures, which raises the issue of whether it violated a federal disclosure law for Supreme Court justices. And, according to ProPublica’s report, the hedge fund had cases come before the Supreme Court at least ten times in the years since the trip.
The ProPublica reporters emailed a series of questions to Alito. But instead of responding to the reporters, the justice responded in the Wall Street Journal with a rebuttal to the article before it was published.
As Poynter noted, the Society for Professional Journalists said that the Journal’s decision to publish Alito’s opinion piece before the ProPublica story it criticized could be completed was “an affront to professional courtesy and professional standards.”
Shop Talk is a weekly panel discussion about journalism issues. The program features Dr. Will Buss, who teaches in the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Illinois University and advises the student editors at the Western Courier and the students at student radio station The Dog: Jessica Martin, who teaches in the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Illinois University and is news director of NEWS3-TV at WIU; and TSPR News Director Rich Egger.
