MediaWatch: November 1991
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: November 1991
- Hard and Soft on Clarence Thomas
- NewsBites: Please Tax Us
- Revolving Door: Adding from Harvard Yard
- Nightline and Frontline Caught in Hoax
- The Court's Future
- Reporter or Campaign Strategist?
- Media Money Leans Left
- Once in Love with Nina
- Print Reporters Too
- Janet Cooke Award: L.A. Times: Savage Attack on Rehnquist
The Court's Future
THE COURT'S FUTURE. The addition of Clarence Thomas is making reporters glum about the Supreme Court's future. On the October 7 NBC Nightly News, reporter Lisa Myers sounded the alarm: "Given the Court's increasingly conservative makeup, it also could end the era in which the Court has led the fight against racial injustice in this country."
CBS reporter Rita Braver framed the issues from the liberal perspective on the October 15 Evening News: "Ultraconservatives William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia usually draw enough of the Court's other conservatives to form a majority. But not always. The addition of Clarence Thomas, however, makes it even more likely that in the near future the Supreme Court will ease requirements for school desegregation, cut back on affirmative action programs and other protections for minorities and women, get tougher with reporters in freedom of speech cases, further crack down on the rights of accused in criminal cases, and overturn the basic right to abortion."
