SCOTUSblog still lacks its own press credentials to cover the Supreme Court, whose new term began Monday. Reached by email, SCOTUSblog Publisher Tom Goldstein said that after his organization in April received a credential to cover the U.S. Senate, which the court had suggested, “they were going to reevaluate their credentialing policy.” That reevaluation is apparently taking a while: “They say they have no expectations of when that will be done,” Goldstein writes.
The Supreme Court’s public information office is operating during the government shutdown, a representative told Poynter in a phone call Monday. In an email, court public information officer Kathleen Arberg said, “We are in the process of reviewing our credentialing procedures and are not issuing new credentials until that process is complete.”
SCOTUSblog has become a must-visit site for people interested in court coverage, particularly decisions, which it strives to report as quickly or faster than traditional news organizations. It won a Peabody Award earlier this year. Unlike SCOTUSblog, the court’s “own Web site doesn’t post petitions,” Linda Greenhouse wrote last year, noting that “Twenty-seven news organizations have permanent credentials to cover the Supreme Court. Remarkably, Scotusblog is not one of them.”
SCOTUSblog reporter Lyle Denniston has a press credential from WBUR in Boston, for which he also files reports. That’s how SCOTUSblog will continue to get him inside for the time being.
Previously: SCOTUSblog tries again to get credentialed to cover the Supreme Court | Why it’s so hard for SCOTUSblog to get Supreme Court press credentials
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