Law, College of
Nebraska Law Bulletin (Selected Issues)
Date of this Version
6-27-2018
Document Type
Article
Citation
Nebraska Law Bulletin (June 27, 2018)
Abstract
In our research we examined the New York Times’ coverage of two unpopular twenty-first century Supreme Court decisions (one issued by conservative Justices, the other by liberal Justices) to determine if there are indicators of bias in reporting about Supreme Court decisions. For each case, we calculated the percentage of articles discussing the case that contain explicit mentions of the ideological split, thereby creating an objective standard to expose potential latent biases in reporting about the Supreme Court. To confirm the results, we applied the standard to reporting from other media outlets. While the separate topics of media bias and Supreme Court case salience have been extensively covered elsewhere, our analysis will greatly benefit those interested specifically in reportage of Supreme Court decisions. We conclude our report with a discussion of how biased reporting on the judiciary can be more detrimental to society than biased reporting on the executive and legislative branches.
Comments
Copyright 2018, the authors