I first started covering the U.S. Supreme Court just over five years ago. As measured in high court years, that’s barely a nanosecond-everything there moves glacially. But as measured in the life of the Internet, it’s been an age; an age that’s brought about some rather stunning changes.
One of the most striking aspects of Supreme Court coverage is how little it’s changed over the centuries. Since televisions and recording devices are still barred from the Court, curious citizens must still rely largely on a cadre of print reporters to cover oral argument and summarize new decisions. Sketch artists’ renderings of some usually fungible white male at a podium might accompany news reports in the really “big cases,” and television news trucks park outside the marble plaza to cover the press conferences that take place on the front steps when argument concludes. For the most part, however, news of the day in the courtroom comes filtered through the eyes and ears of the clutch of reporters permitted-with pen and pad and nothing else-inside the hallowed chambers.
