The Man Behind the New York Times's Legal Coverage
Adam Liptak is the national legal reporter for New York Times, though he'll soon be taking over the Supreme Court beat from Linda Greenhouse.
Liptak's answering questions from readers this week, so the NYTimes has a feature on him:
He first joined The Times as a copyboy in 1984, after graduation from Yale University, where he was an editor of The Yale Daily News Magazine, with a degree in English. In addition to clerical work and fetching coffee, he assisted the reporter M.A. Farber in covering the trial of a libel suit brought by Gen. William Westmoreland against CBS.Mr. Liptak returned to Yale for a law degree, graduating in 1988. During law school, he worked as a summer clerk in the The New York Times Company's legal department. After graduating, he spent four years at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, a New York City law firm, as a litigation associate specializing in First Amendment matters.
In 1992, he returned to The Times's legal department, spending a decade advising The Times and the company's other newspapers, television stations and new media properties on defamation, privacy, newsgathering and related issues, and he frequently litigated media and commercial cases.
In 2002, Liptak gave into the writing itch and joined the news staff. For those of you aspiring to make the jump from law to journalism, you can draw inspiration from Liptak's interesting career path.
The Times readers have lots of serious questions for Liptak, about the SCOTUS voter id ruling, the death penalty, the question of balance, etc. No gossipy questions about Biglaw vs Bigmedia salaries, or filling Linda Greenhouse's heels. Oh well, there are two days of questions left...
Talk to the Newsroom: Adam Liptak, National Legal Reporter [New York Times]
(18) Comments
First! No more Greenhouse effect.
Boring--No one Cares! This is not Tabloid worthy.
He also gave a great interview recently on Fresh Air, which should be still available for free on iTunes or Fresh Air's website. You should post a link.
yes, my goal in life is drop my earnings by 3/4 and spend time being a professional gossip and kiss up to those in power.
or not.
or to be an idealogical hack for a paper that openly tries to swing stories in such way to make them pro-abortion, anti-death-penalty, anti-Bush/GOP, and pro-affirmative action and socialism.
Yay, the Jason Blair Times!
Abortion by DEMAND!
I DEMAND an abortion! DEMAND DEMAND DEMAND!
Best to just stay in the bunker, 10:47. If you come out, the liberal media will get you!!
Can I have an abortion too? Or should I just wait to miscarry after I read this blog?
10:47, yeah, I hate the media too. I mean, what have THEY ever done for US?
11:14: Colbert Report not doing it for you anymore?
1056: belongs in prison.
As somebody who made the jump from journalism into law, all I can say is we're a lot better off in this profession. The ills of the legal industry don't even begin to compare to the problems of the media in the age of the Internet. And Liptak's job is like the absolute coolest work you could ever do, sort of like being Thom Yorke if you were a musician or something. Most journalism is tripe, stories about the weather, re-written press releases, and apologies for the status quo.
11:21 - Let's just cut to the chase here. I am hereby informing you that you do crap work and you are fired. This is not a layoff; you suck, despite your many previous years of positive reviews. Although, we do wish you all the best in your future endeavors
// end PH impression
Please don't fire me. I promise I will be more careful with my uterus.
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