Linda Greenhouse

Infobox Person
name = Linda Greenhouse


image_size = 175px
caption = Linda Greenhouse in San Francisco in 2005
birth_date = birth date and age|1947|1|9
birth_place = New York City
occupation = Journalist
known_for = Pulitzer Prize winner

Linda Greenhouse (b. January 9, 1947, New York City) is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who covered the United States Supreme Court for nearly three decades for the "The New York Times." She will join Yale Law School in January 2009 as the Knight Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Senior Fellow.cite press release | url = http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=2281 | title = Linda Greenhouse Returns to Yale Law School in 2009 as Journalist-in-Residence | publisher = Yale University Office of Public Affairs | date = 2008-03-27 | accessdate = 2008-07-20]

Education

Greenhouse received her BA degree in government from Radcliffe College in 1968 and a Master of Studies in Lawcite web |url=http://www.law.yale.edu/academics/mslprogram.asp | title=Yale Law School : M.S.L. Program |accessdate=2007-10-07] from Yale Law School in 1978.

Career

Greenhouse began her 40-year career at The New York Times covering state government in the paper's bureau in Albany.cite news | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/business/media/14askthetimes.html | title = Talk to the Newsroom: Supreme Court Reporter | publisher = The New York Times | date = 2008-07-14] After completing her Master's degree on a Ford Foundation fellowship, she returned to the Times and covered 29 sessions of the Supreme Court from 1978 to 2007,cite news | author = Greenhouse, Linda | date = 2008-07-13 | title = 2,691 Deciscions | publisher = The New York Times | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/weekinreview/13linda.html | accessdate = 2007-07-13] with the exception of two years during the mid-1980s during which she covered the Congress. Since 1981, she has authored over 2,800 articles for the New York Times. [cite web | url = http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/linda_greenhouse/index.html?8qa | title = Linda Greenhouse | accessdate = 2007-10-07 | work = The New York Times] She has been a regular guest on the PBS program "Washington Week". [cite web | url = http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/aroundthetable/greenhouse.html | title = Washington Week. Linda Greenhouse | accessdate = 2007-10-07 | publisher = PBS ]

In 2008, Greenhouse accepted an offer from the Times for an early retirement at the end of the Supreme Court session in the summer of 2008. [cite news |url=http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5575780.html |title=NYT's Greenhouse Takes Buyout Offer | publisher = Houston Chronicle | date = 2008-02-27 accessdate=2008-02-28 |format= |work=] cite news | url=http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2008/06/goodbye-to-gree.html | title=A Goodbye for Greenhouse | publisher=Legal Times | author=Tony Mauro | date=June 12 2008 | accessdate=2008-06-15 ] Seven of the nine sitting Justices attended a goodbye party for Greenhouse on June 12, 2008.

Awards and Prizes

Greenhouse was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism (Beat Reporting) in 1998 "for her consistently illuminating coverage of the United States Supreme Court."cite web|url=http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1998/beat-reporting/bio/|title=Pulitzer Prize Winners 1998: Beat Reporting - Biography|publisher=Pulitzer.org|accessdate=2007-08-09] In 2004, she received the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism [cite web | url = http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/goldsmith_awards/career_award.htm | title = Goldsmith Career Award | accessdate = 2007-10-07 | publisher = The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University] and the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism. [cite web | url = http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1165270069774/page/1175295287807/simplepage.htm | title = John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism - Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism | accessdate = 2007-10-07] She was a Radcliffe Institute Medal winner in 2006. [cite press release | title = Linda Greenhouse ’68 Wins 2006 Radcliffe Institute Medal | publisher = Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University | date = 2006-06-08 | url = http://www.radcliffe.edu/about/news/pr/show_pr.php?pr_name=060608_greenhouse.html | accessdate = 2007-10-07]

When she was at Radcliffe, she said in a speech given in 2006, "I was the Harvard stringer for the "Boston Herald", which regularly printed, and paid me for, my accounts of student unrest and other newsworthy events at Harvard. But when it came time during my senior year to look for a job in journalism, the "Herald" would not even give me an interview, and neither would the "Boston Globe", because these newspapers had no interest in hiring women."cite web | url = http://www.radcliffe.edu/alumnae/reunions/4and9/greenhouse.php | title = 2006 Radcliffe Institute Medalist Linda Greenhouse ‘68 | publisher=Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study | accessdate= 2007-08-09]

Criticism of Greenhouse

Some critics, notably retired Appeals Court Judge Laurence H. Silberman, have complained of what they call the "Greenhouse Effect." They believe that some federal judges have changed their opinions to win favorable coverage, either in the "New York Times" or in the legal press in general, which they view as being part of the "Liberal Establishment." This criticism seems directed less at Greenhouse personally than at a general assumption of a liberal media bias.cite web|url=http://www.slate.com/id/2123935/|title=The Souter Factor|publisher="Slate"|accessdate=2007-08-09|date=3-August-2005|author=Dahlia Lithwick]

Greenhouse has also been criticized for her failure to maintain the appearance of objectivity.cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6146693|author=Folkenflik, David|title=Critics Question Reporter's Airing of Personal Views|publisher="All Things Considered"|date=26-September-2006|accessdate=2007-08-09] Greenhouse expresses her personal views as an outspoken advocate for abortion rights and critic of conservative religious values. In 1989, Greenhouse was rebuked by "Times" editors for participating in an abortion-rights rally in Washington. The "New York Times" public editor Daniel Okrent said that he has never received a single complaint of bias in Greenhouse's coverage.cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6146693|author=Folkenflik, David|title=Critics Question Reporter's Airing of Personal Views|publisher="All Things Considered"|date=26-September-2006|accessdate=2007-08-09]

Harvard speech

She has also faced criticism for a (Harvard University June, 2006) speech criticizing US policies and actions at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and Haditha. In the speech, Greenhouse said she started crying a few years back at a Simon & Garfunkel concert because her (Sixties) generation hadn't done a better job of running the country than previous generations:

Media critic Howard Kurtz of the "Washington Post" commented, "Don't those remarks, publicized last week by National Public Radio, go too far for a beat reporter covering such issues at the high court?" Kurtz quoted Greenhouse defending her comments, calling them "statements of fact," not opinion.cite web|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/01/AR2006100101125_2.html|author=Kurtz, Howard|title=The Right Man For Fox News: Roger Ailes Soldiers On For the Good of the Cause|publisher="The Washington Post"|accessdate=2007-08-09|date=2-October-2006]

Daniel Okrent, the first public editor, or in-house journalism critic, of the "New York Times", said of Greenhouse's remarks: "It's been a basic tenet of journalism ... that the reporter's ideology [has] to be suppressed and submerged, so the reader has absolute confidence that what he or she is reading is not colored by previous views."

Greenhouse responded to the criticism saying, "The notion that someone cannot go and speak from the heart to a group of college classmates and fellow alums, without being accountable to self-appointed media watchdogs, means American journalism is in danger of strangling in its own sanctimony."

She told "National Public Radio": "I said what I said in a public place. Let the chips fall where they may."

Greenhouse in the news

On August 9, 2007, a television crew from C-SPAN was forbidden to film a panel discussion at a meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Greenhouse had told organizers that she would not be able "answer [questions] as fully and frankly" as she would be if the session were not filmed.cite news|url=http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6467927.html|author=John Eggerton|title=Journalism Educators Bar C-SPAN Cameras|publisher=Broadcasting & Cable|date=10-August-2007|accessdate=2007-08-10] The Vice-President of programming at C-SPAN, Terence Murphy questioned the decision, "If professors of journalism and working journalists taking part in a journalism education conference don’t stand up for open media access to public policy discussions, who will?” [ [Gal Beckerman Fri 10, Aug 2007 Columbia Journalism Review http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_greenhouse_effect.php] ]

Bibliography

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Notes

External links

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* cite news | url = http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15051659/site/newsweek/ | title =Fair and Balanced? A former New York Times ombudsman says Linda Greenhouse’s political comments aren’t necessarily a bad thing. | accessdate = 2007-10-06 | author = Jessica Bennett | date = 2006-09-28 | work = Newsweek
* [http://video2.harvard.edu:8080/ramgen/radvideo/RadDay2006_luncheon.rm Video clip of June 2006 Harvard speech]
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Persondata
NAME= Greenhouse, Linda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Journalist
DATE OF BIRTH= 1947-1-9
PLACE OF BIRTH= New York City
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=