Earlier this month in Washington, D.C., there was a gala for the Supreme Court Historical Society, a charity whose purpose is to preserve the court’s history and teach the public about its role.
The black-tie event was not open to the media. Members paid $500 for tickets. Supreme Court justices were in attendance.
At this event, a woman posing as a Catholic conservative spoke with — and recorded audio of — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.
That audio is now making news.
Alito, especially, made what some see as controversial comments, saying, among other things, that he agrees that “people in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.”
There also was a recorded conversation with Alito’s wife. The quotes, and the story behind them, have blown up the past couple of days. (For what it’s worth, Roberts’ quotes were more fitting of a Supreme Court justice).
It turns out the woman, Lauren Windsor, isn’t a religious conservative at all. On X, she describes herself as a “journalist” and executive producer of a web show called “The Undercurrent,” which she calls “a grassroots political web-show for investigative and field reporting.” She is also a documentary filmmaker.
She told MSNBC’s Joy Reid that she approached Alito as if she were a religious conservative. She added that she is a Supreme Court Historical Society member and paid for a ticket.
But her recordings, which also include a conversation with Alito’s wife, have now become a major story on cable and broadcast news, and on major news sites such as The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Windsor teased the recordings on X, tweeting, “I have major news to drop tomorrow, and I don’t say that lightly. It’s likely the biggest undercover story yet of my career. Follow me for all the updates.”
She then gave an exclusive to Rolling Stone about her recordings.
Windsor calls herself a journalist. But did she act like a journalist?
Not only did she not identify herself as a journalist when talking to the Supreme Court justices, she lied about her views. Then she conducted what essentially were interviews without the subjects knowing they were being interviewed for a story.
Poynter’s senior vice president Kelly McBride, chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership, told me, “Is there ever a time when it’s OK for a journalist to deceive somebody? I would never say never, but I have yet, in 20 years of offering ethics advice, seen an instance that I would say it is justified.”
McBride also told me this would not be common practice at a legitimate news organization, saying, “Any other journalist would be fired for doing something like that. Like any ill-gotten piece of information, it puts us in a position as journalists where we have to be very transparent with the audience about what we know and what we don’t know.”
The District of Columbia has one-party consent laws. That means Windsor could record anything she wanted, without the consent of those she was recording. But just because she is allowed to record them doesn’t mean it’s journalistically ethical to record someone without their knowledge.
“The danger comes when she is portrayed as a journalist, and she’s not a journalist,” said Al Tompkins, a longtime teacher of broadcast journalism at Poynter and a former TV news director. “She styles herself as a documentarian, but she’s really an activist. And in this case, she is misrepresenting who she is. She is tricking her way into the trust of people she’s talking to.”
Windsor has done plenty of media the past two days, defending the tactics she used.
Windsor told CNN’s Jim Acosta, “To people who want to pearl-clutch about this, please tell me how we’re going to get answers when the Supreme Court has been shrouded in secrecy and really refusing any degree of accountability whatsoever.”
She said something similar to The New York Times’ Abbie VanSickle: “We have a court that has refused to submit to any accountability whatsoever — they are shrouded in secrecy. I don’t know how, other than going undercover, I would have been able to get answers to these questions.”
Acosta asked her why she wasn’t more upfront about who she was and whether she had any “qualms” about gaining confidence by acting as if she had strong conservative convictions to get the justices to talk.
Windsor said, “I do think it was the only way to do it,” and went on to explain that she is fighting for a greater cause — our nation’s future. And that’s an argument that many of her defenders are making; that Windsor is fighting for something critically important.
But that sounds like activism, not journalism.
Reputable journalists would never do what Windsor did, and defending sound and ethical journalism should not be dismissed as, to use Windsor’s words, “pearl-clutching.”
However, there is another aspect to this story. The comments made by the Supreme Court justices are, indeed, making news.
Tompkins wasn’t sure the story was all that newsworthy, adding, “I care less what a Supreme Court justice says at a party and more what he or she writes in their (court) decisions.”
Still, the story did generate headlines.
I checked in with my Poynter colleague Fernanda Camarena, an award-winning TV and radio reporter and editor who was a manager on NBC News’ Standards and Practices team — where she provided guidance to NBC News, MSNBC, Telemundo and streaming platforms to ensure quality control and high journalistic standards.
The question I had for her was: What do reputable news organizations do with information that came about through the methods Windsor used?
Camarena told me, “If reporting on this, a news organization should be critical of the tactics used to obtain the recording. It should ask itself, does this meet our standards?”
The key, she said, is adding context to the story and, if possible, vetting the recording to make sure it’s legitimate.
“Once that’s done, transparency is required,” Camarena said. “Organizations should include context around how it was obtained, if it was edited and seek those involved for comment.”
For example, VanSickle’s story in The New York Times did all of the things Camarena suggested. VanSickle reported what was said in the recordings, but then wrote how the interviews were obtained, got comments from Windsor, sought comments from Alito and Roberts and the gala organizers, and talked to journalism ethics experts about Windsor’s practices. Then she further explained why the whole thing might be considered newsworthy, as well as the concerns with the story.
Tompkins, too, said it was important for news outlets to put the quotes in context, also noting that “a subject being taped surreptitiously is not how we do business.”
Camarena added, “News organizations should be clear that those tactics were not traditional journalism. It’s not how journalism is done or should be done. We need the public to trust journalists, and this type of approach doesn’t help.”
CNN signs on with AP
Puck’s Dylan Byers broke the news that CNN has signed a deal with The Associated Press. The network will run AP content on its website. CNN had a deal with the AP in the past but dropped the wire service in 2010 to produce more original content.
Byers writes that some CNN staffers are concerned that this deal with AP means staff cuts could be coming. But a CNN spokesperson told Byers that the deal is intended to free up CNN staffers to work on original, long form and investigative reporting.
The spokesperson added, “This allows our writers to spend more time on enterprise reporting and less time on quick writes. The goal is to enhance our editorial reach while allowing us to focus on key editorial priorities.”
Not happy
In Tuesday’s newsletter, I mentioned how it seemed like a really short-sighted idea for USA Basketball to leave WNBA rookie sensation Caitlin Clark off the Olympic team. At a time when the WNBA and women’s basketball are trying to grow the game, they should include a player who is one of the most famous athletes in the country and, by far, the most popular women’s basketball player.
But there’s more to this story that I didn’t mention, and something that Front Office Sports’ Michael McCarthy smartly noted: NBC Sports, which is televising the Paris Olympics, cannot be happy over Clark being left off the team.
McCarthy wrote, “The Olympics is still a TV show. No matter where you come down on this argument, omitting Clark is objectively bad for NBC Sports, which is paying $7.75 billion to the International Olympic Committee to televise the Olympic Games through 2032. ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser said NBC should be ‘livid’ about the lost ratings opportunity. FS1’s Colin Cowherd called it a missed ‘layup’ for women’s basketball. ‘Life gives you so few big waves. When they do, grab your surfboard,’ Cowherd noted.”
McCarthy went on to write, “The Olympics needs a ratings boost. The 2021 Tokyo Olympics were the least-watched prime-time Olympics on record, summer or winter, according to Sports Media Watch. NBC’s coverage averaged 15.6 million viewers per night, well below the previous record low of 19.8 million viewers for the ’18 Winter Games.”
Returning serve
Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz plays a shot during the men’s final match of the French Open last Sunday. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
TNT Sports, part of Warner Bros. Discovery, has reached a 10-year deal to show tennis’ French Open starting in 2025. Variety’s Brian Steinberg broke the story last week, but it became official on Tuesday.
The featured matches will be on TNT, but Max will air nearly 900 matches across all competitions — including simulcasts of matches airing on TNT, TBS and truTV. There also will be highlight shows and whip-around coverage.
NBC had been mostly airing the French Open since 1983.
So that’s some good news for Warner Bros. Discovery and TNT, which might be facing the really bad news of losing its NBA rights.
The current deal with the NBA ends after next season and all the reports are that ABC/ESPN, NBC and Amazon Prime will get the new deals, although Warner Bros. Discovery is holding out hope that it can exercise its right to match one of the other network’s offers, or that the NBA might agree to a fourth deal that would give TNT some games.
An announcement on the new NBA TV rights is expected to come shortly after the NBA Finals. Game 3 of that series is tonight.
Media tidbits
- Breaking news from Tuesday: The Wall Street Journal’s Jessica Toonkel with “Redstone’s National Amusements Ends Deal Talks With Skydance.”
- For Popular Information on Substack, Judd Legum and Aaron Rupar with “Sinclair injects deceptive attacks on Biden’s age into dozens of local broadcasts.”
- Axios’ Sara Fischer with “Dark money news outlets outpacing local daily newspapers.”
- More good work writing about their own shop from The Washington Post’s Elahe Izadi and Sarah Ellison in “The Post at a crossroads: Existential questions in a dire season for news.”
- CNN’s Jon Passantino with “Fox board members subpoenaed in Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit over 2020 election lies.”
- My Poynter colleague Amaris Castillo with “How ProPublica kept focus on humanity at every stage of series on homelessness and possession loss.”
- ESPN announced it has signed NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe to a long-term deal. He will expand his role on the morning debate show, “First Take” alongside Stephen A. Smith and Molly Qerim. He also will start appearing on other ESPN shows at a later time. What’s interesting is Sharpe was working with Smith’s former co-host Skip Bayless on FS1 until tension between the two led to Sharpe leaving FS1 last year. Not long after leaving, Sharpe joined “First Take” on a part-time basis.
Hot type
- Fantastic work by The Washington Post’s Brady Dennis, Niko Kommenda and Emily Wright with videos by Ray Whitehouse: “Anatomy of a flood.”
- For CNN, Brent Swails, Clarissa Ward and Mohammad Hasan with “‘In prison because of our parents’: Children of ISIS fighters coming of age in detention ask what they’re being punished for.”
More resources for journalists
- Reporting on the Rise of AI: A RAND-Poynter Masterclass. Apply by Friday!
- Join Roy Peter Clark for a writing session that’s anything but dry.
- Applications are now open for Leadership Academy for Diversity in Media.
- Manage big responsibilities without direct reports? Try Lead With Influence.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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As long as the news outlets that used the recording didn’t commission or direct her to make the recording, there shouldn’t be an ethical problem with reporting on it. While her method of making the tape is questionable, she does demonstrate an ethical decision-making process in explaining how she did it and why, to actual and potential stakeholders.
All of the conservative justices appointed in the 20-30 years have lied during the confirmation hearings. Not a single one told the truth when asked about their opinions about Roe Vs Wade as they damn well knew they would not get confirmed. And I don’t know that the liberal justices have done much better but at least I agree with them and they tend to have American’s best interests at heart. As for Kelly McBride saying she’s never seen this done before, I do not know what she’s smoking. Under-cover journalism is a cornerstone of reporting. I grew up in editorial rooms, my mother was a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, in fact. Has she never heard of Upton Sinclair? Antonio Salas? Tim Lopes? Günter Wallraff? The list goes on, granted most of them investigate criminal organizations but the Supreme Court is shrouded in about the same secrecy as a criminal organization with even less accountability. We need major reforms in SCOTUS NOW, we need a 27-judge randomly rotating panel just like the 5th Circuit court. That way no one knows who will hear their case, liberal or conservative.
Alito is a serial liar. He lied in his job interview before Congress about his position on Roe. He lied to reporters when he said he knew nothing of the “upside down” flag. He lied when he told reporters about some issue with his neighbors during a school year when there was no school because of COVID. And then there’s the fact thet the SCOTUS seems to think they are above the fray when they are in fact not. Roberts is running the sleaziest court ever with Thomas and Alito abusing their positions and taking bribes. And you’re worried tht this was not journalistically ethical? I’m nore concerned that this story was broken by an amateur, not a so-called ethical journalist.