Last Friday night, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, granted a request by the Trump administration, to temporarily stay a lower court ruling, which ordered the government to fully fund SNAP for the rest of this month, until the First Circuit Court of Appeals weighed in on the case. ABCNews.com reported it straight on Friday:
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the pause will remain in effect until the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issues a judgment on the matter. Jackson is the justice assigned to emergency applications out of the 1st circuit, and her order did not refer the matter to the full Supreme Court.
Yet mysteriously, when it came time to report on this story, Justice Brown Jackson's name was no where to be found on several news shows including some of the Sunday shows. I wonder why that happened!
Let's start with the fact that Brown Jackson is probably the most liberal Justice on the Court. The fact that she ruled in favor of a request from Trump, even temporarily, a ruling that according to the narrative that has been put forth by the Democrats and the left wing media, is starving children, certainly provides incentive for omission. On their Saturday evening newscasts, CBS and NBC did not mention her name, while reporting on the story.
Over on NBC, anchor Jose Diaz-Balart introduced the report on the decision by saying, "Across the country tonight, the impacts of the government shutdown are growing even more dire for millions of people going without food assistance, after a Supreme Court order impacting the SNAP program." And inside the package itself, it was more of the same, "In a late Friday night order, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a lower court decision that had ordered the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP benefit payments by Friday..."
Saturday on CBS Weekend News, White House reporter Willie James Inman did his part to put the decision on the entire Supreme Court, claiming that those who depend on SNAP are "In limbo as the Supreme Court temporarily blocks full payments of the SNAP benefits program, at least for now....Late last night the Supreme Court granted an emergency order temporarily halting a lower court ruling for the government to pay up." That was followed by a clip from a woman who claimed "If we don't get SNAP until the shutdown is over we could end up literally starving!" Can't have Justice Brown Jackson's name mixed up with that!
Interestingly enough, Saturday's edition of PBS News Weekend did mention the Justice by name. The process was explained step by step by Amy Howe of SCOTUS Blog, and it included mentioning Brown Jackson "Shortly before 9:30.. last night, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued that administrative stay."
She also explained why it was left up to her to issue a ruling, "Justice Jackson is what's known as the Circuit Justice for the First Circuit, which means that all the emergency requests go initially to her... And she said the reason I'm issuing this stay now is because we expect the First Circuit to act quickly, and so she put the federal judge's ruling on hold for 48 hours after the First Circuit acts."
I should mention that on Sunday's edition of ABC's World News Tonight, they did mention Brown Jackson by name in their report
And if you were wondering about NBC's Meet The Press, or CBS's Face The Nation, it was all about the Supreme Court decision, no specific Justice was revealed. On ABC's This Week, congressional correspondent Jay O'Brien did tell us that it was Justice Brown Jackson who issued the decision on Friday night.
Look, had Justice Clarence Thomas or Brett Kavanaugh, or any of the conservatives on the Supreme Court made this decision, the media would have had a field day, playing into their agenda and ripping the court for giving Trump everything he wants, playing a part in 'starving kids', etc.. But not only was Brown Jackson's name left out of these reports on the decision, there was really no criticism of the decision itself, because to do so, would have forced these "journalists" to fess up and admit who made the decision.
This is more of what we've found is "conspiciously vague" TV reporting on the shutdown. It's bad journalism.
