The Political Court: Newspaper Coverage, Appointment Politics, and Public Support of the United States Supreme Court, 1980–2023

Abstract

The public expects courts to behave as legal institutions. But news media coverage of courts often contradicts that expectation. We argue that political framing – the media’s use of political, ideological, and partisan language – in news coverage of the United States Supreme Court has increased, and that political framing harms Court support. We employ a novel dataset of Court media coverage from five newspapers of record from 1980 to 2023. Observational data demonstrate (1) an increase in the use of political terms in news coverage of the Court over time, and (2) an unmistakable and abrupt increase in political framing in 2016 following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Using a survey experiment, we establish the validity of our measurement approach as well as the causal implications of these trends for public perceptions of the Court. This study makes clear that Justice Scalia’s death, and the intense politics it initiated, introduced a level of political coverage of the Supreme Court that has not been observed for at least two generations. The stark change in how the news media covers the Court has important implications for the public’s attitudes toward judges, perceptions of the proper judicial role, and support for courts.

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