Wall Street Journal fights back over criticism for letting Justice Alito scoop hit piece targeting him

The Wall Street Journal rejected criticism for allowing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to scoop a ProPublica hit piece targeting him.

ProPublica, which is waging war against the Supreme Court's right-leaning justices, published an article on Tuesday accusing Alito of legal and ethical violations for not previously disclosing a "luxury" fishing trip he took in 2008.

Alito scooped the story by pre-emptively responding to the charges in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, explaining in detail why the charges are not valid.

The fact that Alito was given the opportunity to respond to ProPublica's charges without giving his answers to ProPublica generated backlash against the Wall Street Journal. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), for example, suggested without evidence that Alito "cooked up" the "weird pre-rebuttal" with the assistance of a PR firm. Politico, moreover, accused Alito of having picked a "fight" with ProPublica.

How did the WSJ respond?

The newspaper defended its actions by asserting that Alito would not have received a fair shake in the pages of ProPublica.

"Justice Alito clearly wanted his defense to receive public disclosure in full, not edited piecemeal. We saw ProPublica's list of 18 questions and had a good idea of where the reporters were going," the editorial board wrote.

"The story proved us right," they declared.

The editors also responded to media criticism, highlighting the irony of the media's one-sided defense of ProPublica.

"It is also hilarious to be denounced for betraying the media brotherhood for the offense of scooping the competition," they wrote. "This is the same crowd that would prefer if we didn’t exist. Their pearl-clutching reveals the degree of media conformity when it comes to approved progressive political targets like Justice Alito."

What did ProPublica say?

The outlet's editor in chief Stephen Engelberg expressed dismay at Alito's decision and the Wall Street Journal's framing of his essay.

We were surprised to see Justice Alito’s answers appear to our questions in an opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal, but we’re happy to get a response in any form.

We’re curious to know whether The Journal fact-checked the essay before publication. We strongly reject the headline’s assertion that "ProPublica Misleads Its Readers," which the piece declared without anyone having read the article and without asking for our comment.

But it's true ProPublica misled its readers.

As constitutional law scholar Josh Blackman pointed out, ProPublica omitted that the Judicial Conference changed disclosure rules earlier this year to dictate that federal judges disclose trips taken on private jets.

Moreover, buried deep in the 73rd paragraph of the ProPublica story was a fact that undermined the very premise of the accusation.

That's because Federal Appeals Court Judge Ray Rudolph, who was on the 2008 fishing trip and another in 2005, once asked the Judicial Conference whether he needed to disclose the trips. The group advised that he did not. Rudolph even provided ProPublica with his personal notes regarding the inquiry.

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