Editorial Coverage of Reagan Supreme Court Nominees

To measure the editorial advocacy of influential newspapers concerning the membership of the Supreme Court, a study analyzed editorials from such newspapers concerning the last five Supreme Court nominees of President Ronald Reagan (William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork, Douglas Ginsburg, and Anthony Kennedy). A telephone survey of 100 editorial page editors (out of a possible 130) of influential newspapers was conducted using a seven-item questionnaire. (From one to three newspapers from each of the 50 states were selected.) The newspapers' editorial responses to the five nominees were correlated with variables regarding the social and political environment in the newspapers' circulation areas, such as median household income, minority population, party and conservatism of the local congressmen, and local senators' votes on the Rehnquist and Bork nominations. The number of papers that editorialized about the nominees was quite high--between 76% and 97%, depending on the nominee. However, findings indicated that for the most part, the positions advocated by editorial writers were not related to newspaper or community characteristics or to state or political factors. (Two tables of data are included and 21 footnotes are attached. An appendix listing the newspapers surveyed concludes the paper.) (SR)