The Woodrow Wilson School's Program in Law and Public Affairs will host a panel discussion, "Full-Court Press: The Supreme Court, the Media, and Public Understanding" at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 11, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall, on the Princeton campus.

The recent events surrounding President Barack Obama’s nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court highlight issues concerning the public’s understanding of our nation’s highest court, and what the media’s role is or should be in educating the public about this branch of government.  While the Supreme Court in recent decades has become a prominent player in American politics, the public’s knowledge of the judges and their impact remains uncertain.  The panel will examine what the media’s role has been, how different media entities currently view their roles, and how these entities see themselves as evolving in the future. 
 
Panel discussants will include Emily Bazelon, Yale Law School senior research scholar affiliated with Center for Law and Media and Slate.com senior writer and editor; Adam Liptak, Supreme Court correspondent, for the New York Times; Dahlia Lithwick, Slate.com senior editor and legal correspondent; and Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker staff writer, CNN senior legal analyst, and author of “The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.”
 
Paul Starr, the Stuart Professor of Communications and Public Affairs and at the Woodrow Wilson School, will moderate the panel.
 
This event is free and open to the public.