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Notes -
Allow me to take back the concessions I made on Thomas.
Fix the Court gives me the vibe of a one or two person outfit with strong personal views. I think they were and are an okay starting point for tracking recusals more broadly, which was my reference. I don't think I ever used them as a source, and probably would not use them as a source, for more of the in detail financial reporting about gifts. ProPublica is a stronger team and I think they are doing good work that's fairly evenhanded. They usually state what they know and approximately how certain they are (e.g. they will say if they looked at direct proof, it's hearsay, they found corroboration of trip, etc.) I've read almost all of their stuff all the way through, and a few counterclaims all the way through as well. Now don't get me wrong, it's not like they are saints without an agenda. But I feel they typically adhere to decently good journalistic standards, near as I can tell.
IMO, the link provided does a guilt by association trick, combined with a strawman. It talks about FTC almost the entire article, when they aren't really the experts nor the original source for most of the scandal claims. In fact I expect FTC to have errors. ProPublica less so. What it says specifically about ProPublica, a drive-by broadside right at the end:
I happen to know exactly what they are talking about in the second article. The article cited refers readers to some of the earlier reporting and assumes readers read those. The original reporting that first broke the trips went into extreme detail about exactly what the rules and laws were about trips (which often differed) and the ethical debate behind them. I think they thought, and I partially agree, that re-treading the same ground in an article framed explicitly as an update to a previous story was less necessary. The update article cited is only like two pages. The original investigation was something more like 20 pages. Obviously the original can go into more detail. And in the original articles, you can clearly see that they advance the (substantive!) argument that rules allowing transportation to not be disclosed are not only something that seems unethical to the average person, but furthermore, cruises and yacht trips are not only transportation, they are also lodging. Again, I refer you to my argument that we want to hold SC justices to a "appearance of impropriety" higher standard, which is not just my projection or wish, it's the explicit policy goal of the Supreme Court ITSELF. Why would it be bad to hold them to their own moral standard?
The inclusion of a single error also deliberately ignores quite a few cases where, as PP mentions, they actually did find legitimate issues that various Justices later fixed. A single error on a single trip does not discredit the reporting. Most of their reporting focused on a few other examples where more info was available. For example, the numerous luxury retreats. Or the New Zealand yacht trip that did happen, and wasn't disclosed, and we know for a fact this happened because, among other evidence, we have a photo of Thomas' handwritten thank you in a book he gave to a yacht worker mentioning the trip. And finally, a smear is not a smear if... it's true. Their main point is that there is no enforcement mechanism for ethics rules, that at least some justices are skirting common-sense disclosures due to rule technicalities, and the fact that we can only find out about these concerning things via extensive and laborious investigation is, yes, concerning for everyone!
Good points. I imagine propublica is of course motivated and lopsided in attention given, but that makes sense that their work would be better quality.
And, thanks for always being reasonable.
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