ABSTRACT
In chapters 3 and 4, we showed the media presents a distorted image of the Court’s outputs, overreporting certain cases and issues and (more central to our thesis) increasingly including in its stories on Court decisions elements essential to what we have identified as the “cult of personality.” This greater emphasis on the personal and political aspects surrounding a decision has not replaced the media’s use of symbols associated with the “cult of the robe”—reporting on the legal or institutional justifications for a decision as well as references to its legal implications—but it does present the public with a far more variegated picture of the Court. Is a similar media effect present with respect to coverage of individual justices? There are good reasons to expect this to be the case. First, just as certain types of decisions (because of the issue involved or the legal, political, or social implications of the outcome) are more apt to attract media attention, so too are certain moments in the career life cycle of a justice. Nominations, confirmations, and retirements are obvious examples. They are highly unique events that are focused on the individual. Consequently, these are the instances when the media’s spotlight should be most intense. Second, outside of these very personal career events, the newsworthiness of a justice largely is tied to his or her role in the Court’s outputs. And since we uncovered a growing frequency of media coverage of politics in its stories on Court decisions, there is a strong likelihood that mentions of the individual justice will shade more and more toward the “cult of personality” over time as well. After all, the individual justice is the object to which the personal and the politics of the Court can be tied.
