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Monday, June 01, 2009
Court - Blogger Tom Goldstein featured in Washington Post
Howard Kutz's Washington Post media column today features Tom Goldstein, founder of ScotusBlog. Some quotes from the long article:
What makes the brash and balding 38-year-old such a hot media property is Scotusblog, the Web site he founded six years ago to obsessively track the high court. At 7:34 a.m. last Tuesday, an hour before news of the nomination leaked, he posted an essay on the likely lines of attack if President Obama picked Sotomayor. Had he guessed wrong, Goldstein says, he would have looked like "the world's biggest idiot. I was out there on a limb."Three years ago, Goldstein joined the blue-chip Washington firm of Akin Gump, which also agreed to take on Scotusblog and is listed as the site's host. Despite the unorthodox arrangement, Goldstein says his staff, which includes veteran Supreme Court reporter Lyle Denniston, has complete independence. "Lyle could write that our clients are completely insane and evil and there'd be nothing to stop him," Goldstein says in his 12th-floor office with a sweeping view of the Washington Monument.
Denniston, part of a nine-person staff of lawyers and researchers, likes the arrangement: "Tom leaves me alone in all respects. I have no assignments, no deadlines, no second-guessing."
Goldstein makes some concessions to his profession. He recently moved Akin Gump clients from the blog's list of "Petitions to Watch" at the high court, putting them at the bottom to avoid an appearance of favoritism. And Goldstein says he would stay silent rather than trash a court nominee who was likely to be confirmed. "My ethical role as a lawyer is not to wound my client," he says.
One measure of Goldstein's commitment to Scotusblog, which accepts no advertising: He keeps it afloat with up to $100,000 a year from his own pocket. "He's got some serious pride of ownership," says Goldstein's wife, lawyer Amy Howe, who also blogs at the site. "You've created this institution that people read pretty widely. He is the puppet master." The blog recorded 115,000 hits on the day of Sotomayor's nomination -- more than quadruple its usual traffic.
The blog is "enormously helpful to us," says Akin Gump Chairman Bruce McLean, because lawyers and potential clients see it as "directly connected to the prestige of the firm." The same is true, he says, for Goldstein's media profile. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today and Chicago Tribune all quoted Goldstein on Sotomayor.
"He's very adept at being first or nearly first in terms of offering a quick take," says Joan Biskupic, Supreme Court reporter for USA Today. "He's got a very good knack for both the law and the needs of journalists on all things legal. He also knows how to distill things that help people understand what the law's about."
A former intern for Nina Totenberg at National Public Radio, Goldstein buttressed his reputation as a soothsayer in 2005 by writing on the morning that George W. Bush picked Harriet Miers that her nomination was doomed. Goldstein is a Democrat, but journalists regard him as an honest broker. He has, for instance, praised Clarence Thomas as an underrated justice. * * *
Footnote: Scotusblog got shout-outs yesterday on both "This Week" and "Face the Nation." Not bad for a fairly dense legal blog.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 1, 2009 08:41 AM
Posted to Courts in general