The Wall Street Journal faced criticism Wednesday for its highly unusual decision to pre-empt another media organization’s story about Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. by posting his response on its opinion page. bottom.
Judge Alito’s essay, published in the opinion section of the journal, which operates independently of the newsroom, states: performed online It ran Tuesday evening under the headline “Judge Samuel Alito: Pro-Publica Misleads Readers.”
According to an editorial note at the beginning of the essay, two ProPublica reporters, Justin Elliott and Josh Kaplan, emailed Judge Alito questions on Friday, asking for answers by noon Tuesday. It says. An editor’s note reads, “This is Judge Alito’s reply.”
ProPublica released investigation A few hours later on Tuesday, he questioned Judge Alito and took part in a lavish fishing trip as a guest of Republican donor billionaire Paul Singer in 2008, but has since divulged the trip. The company said it did not and had withdrawn from the lawsuit involving Mr. Singer’s hedging. fund.
ProPublica editor-in-chief Steven Engelberg said in a statement Wednesday that ProPublica always seeks answers from people mentioned in articles before publication. ProPublica has published several articles in recent months about possible conflicts of interest among some Supreme Court justices.
“I was surprised to see Judge Alito’s response to our question in the Wall Street Journal opinion essay, but I’d be happy to receive any response,” he said.
“We would be interested to know if the journal fact-checked the essays before publication,” he added. “We strongly reject the claim of the headline ‘Pro-Publica Misleads Readers.’ Thing.”
A spokeswoman for the newspaper did not respond to a request for comment.
Bill Gruskin, professor of journalism at Columbia University, said that opinion page essays usually receive some form of fact-checking, but in this case, the journal did so because the pro-publica research had not yet been published. said it could not have been done. .
“Judge Alito could have issued this as a statement on the SCOTUS website,” Gruskin, the journal’s former top news editor, said in an email. “But the fact that he chose the journal, and that the editorial page was willing to serve as his faithful factual record, says a lot about their relationship.”
In the article, Judge Alito argued that ProPublica’s argument that it should have withdrawn from certain cases and disclosed certain items in its 2008 financial disclosure report was invalid.
