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The Art, Craft, And Future Of Legal Journalism: A Tribute To Anthony Lewis , Richard C. Reuben
The Art, Craft, And Future Of Legal Journalism: A Tribute To Anthony Lewis , Richard C. Reuben
Missouri Law Review
In the modern era, few performed this function better than Anthony Lewis, the legendary U.S. Supreme Court reporter and columnist for The New York Times, who died in March 2013. A pioneer in the coverage of law and the courts, Lewis is widely credited with being one of the founders of contemporary legal journalism. Through a remarkable career that included two Pulitzer Prizes and five books, Lewis taught by example a generation of journalists how to cover the law with accuracy, insight, perspective, and passion. While the law can often be dry and technical, and cases idiosyncratic, Lewis showed legal …
Anthony Lewis: Pioneer In The Court’S Pressroom, Lyle Denniston
Anthony Lewis: Pioneer In The Court’S Pressroom, Lyle Denniston
Missouri Law Review
Journalists, whether they know it or not, and whether or not they would admit it, are profoundly influenced by the eras in which they live and by the ideas which make up their daily news conversation. Tony Lewis was America’s witness to “the Warren Court,” and it forever made him a believing liberal. (He may have been the only reporter covering the Supreme Court who would have understood why that Court was “liberal” rather than “progressive,” which is the more fashionable word for what passes for liberalism today with its strong echoes of early twentieth century progressivism.)
The Rigorous Romantic: Anthony Lewis On The Supreme Court Beat, Linda Greenhouse
The Rigorous Romantic: Anthony Lewis On The Supreme Court Beat, Linda Greenhouse
Missouri Law Review
Tony Lewis called himself “a romantic about the Supreme Court.” If he had not been a romantic when he took up the beat for the New York Times in 1957, he surely would have become one as, for the next seven years, he chronicled the Warren Court’s progressive constitutional revolution at the peak of its energy and transformative power. To list just some of the landmark opinions the Court issued during those seven years is to prove the point: Cooper v. Aaron, Mapp v. Ohio, Baker v. Carr, Engel v. Vitale, Gideon v. Wainwright, Brady v. Maryland, School District of …
Anthony Lewis And The First Amendment, Adam Liptak
Anthony Lewis And The First Amendment, Adam Liptak
Missouri Law Review
It is a great privilege to be with you today to celebrate the life and work of Anthony Lewis who created modern legal journalism. I thought I would try to do three things today to help us think about Tony’s legacy. One is to sketch out what made Tony such a giant. A second is to reflect for a minute on the state of the modern Supreme Court press corps, which he essentially founded. And a third is to consider a topic Tony returned to again and again in his articles, columns and books: the role of the press in …
Anthony Lewis: What He Learned At Harvard Law School, Lincoln Caplan
Anthony Lewis: What He Learned At Harvard Law School, Lincoln Caplan
Missouri Law Review
Anthony Lewis was a columnist for The New York Times for the unusually long tenure of thirty-two years. When he retired in 2001 at the age of seventy-four, Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal for setting “the highest standard of journalistic ethics and excellence” and for being “a clear and courageous voice for democracy and justice.” Lewis ended his last column by paraphrasing one of his heroes: “The most important office in a democracy, Justice Louis Brandeis said, is the office of citizen.” Lewis’ point was that the American commitment to the rule of law and the belief …
Anthony Lewis, Dahlia Lithwick
Anthony Lewis, Dahlia Lithwick
Missouri Law Review
Tony Lewis changed everything about Supreme Court reporting. He changed everything because he inserted himself directly into the conversation between the Justices of the Supreme Court and the American public. He wasn’t writing for the constitutional scholars; he wasn’t writing for the history books (although he might have been) and he wasn’t writing to impress the justices (although he did). Instead, Lewis was a translator, an ambassador, who in the Warren Court era fashioned himself as the People’s Solicitor General; he was the advocate for the little guy before the high court, and an advocate to his readers about what …
As Today’S Tony Lewises Disappear, Courts Fill Void, David A. Sellers
As Today’S Tony Lewises Disappear, Courts Fill Void, David A. Sellers
Missouri Law Review
Tony was a gifted writer, who covered one of the most challenging beats in Washington. His nine “news makers” were not generally accessible to journalists, and their work product was not easily decipherable. Yet Tony made the Supreme Court both understandable and relevant to his readers. Regrettably, the number of journalists who cover courts today, let alone those who write with Tony’s insight and clarity, is very small and rapidly declining. Any number of reports, most notably, the annual State of the News Media by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (“PEJ”), chronicles the shrinking newspaper newsroom workforce, which in …