Liberal reporters who cover the Supreme Court don’t know what they are doing. To fix this, they need to be much more hostile toward conservative justices and even more propagandistic in their coverage.

This was the theme of a live symposium recently held in Washington, D.C. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern of Slate, Elie Mystal of the Nation, and Jay Willis of the leftist Balls and Strikes all admitted that their coverage of the Supreme Court over the years had been terrible — not because of its obvious leftist bias, but because it had failed to prevent conservative court opinions from being handed down. Calling the past few years “a wake-up call” and the result of “the sinking feeling that we’ve been doing it all wrong,” the speakers argued that they have been too deferential to the Supreme Court and its traditions.

Instead of passively “translating” for readers the often byzantine text of Supreme Court rulings, reporters now need to cover the court with the aggression that is usually used when reporters cover Congress or the White House. They need to trace cases long before they make it to the high court, the reporters claimed. They also need to do a lot of grisly stories about people who are “victims” of the court’s decisions, particularly women harmed by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Also, when it comes to conservatives and Christians, the new journalistic model calls not for empathy and insightful coverage, but all-out antipathy.

It’s quite an argument. Acknowledging that they have no reporting skills, lefty writers have decided that repeating the propaganda that pushes their agenda, rather than more fairness and broader coverage, is the solution. They’re treating cancer by smoking cigarettes.

“We’re taking what the justices say at face value, and that is wrong,” offered Mark Joseph Stern. Stern called for reporting as if the Supreme Court were any other government institution. “We were not trained to do that,” he said.

Jay Willis offered that, rather than focusing on “the exact doctrinal method” that a justice might use to come to a conclusion, reporters need to include the “political and cultural context” of a ruling — in other words, editorialize even more than usual. “Our work, rightly or wrongly, is translating,” Lithwick said, adding that she was “personally embarrassed” that she and others had not covered earlier the “scandals” that have come up recently.

Lithwick concluded that, “We cover the institution like it’s made of magic and ponies. We need to adjust so we can do our job of speaking truth to power, and the justices can do their job of learning how to listen.”

None of the panelists mentioned that we’ve already lived through one episode of incompetent reporters recklessly pushing an agenda: the Brett Kavanaugh nomination . Remember Michael Avenatti, who appeared on MSNBC with Lithwick at the time? A liar, convicted felon, and oppo research goon, Avenatti, now in prison, is the new model for Slate.

The journalists also made it clear that covering the Supreme Court now means harassing the justices. The Nation’s Elie Mystal was blunt about it. “Samuel Alito took away abortion and most reporters wouldn’t know him if he was standing behind them in the Publix [store]. What is that? The simple lack of coverage of what these people do. The fact that reporters were not lined up three deep back at their houses between the Dobbs leak and the ruling is a travesty.” Mystal also called for reporters to go to the house of Clarence Thomas, the Left’s longtime favorite punching bag.

The panel then proceeded to mock Lorie Smith , a designer who offers website design services and whose case is currently before the court. She wants to expand her services to offer wedding websites, but says her Christian beliefs would prohibit her from designing a website for gay couples. Smith wants to post a statement on her website about her beliefs, but that would get her in trouble with Denver's anti-discrimination law. Smith has argued the law violates her free speech and religious rights.

Deriding Smith’s “very bad websites” and “Winnie-the-Pooh eyes,” Mark Joseph Stern displayed that he may have some work to do as a reporter. He savaged Smith’s faith, claiming Smith won’t do anything “in violation of what she thinks Jesus whispers into her ear every night.” Willis added that Smith hears the voice of both Jesus and “the dead white framers” of the Constitution.

Stern and the others had just been advocating a deeper form of reporting that covered not just rulings but the early genesis of the cases, including profiles of the plaintiffs involved. But with Smith, suddenly none of that was relevant. The law Smith is challenging is the same one at issue in the case of Colorado baker Jack Phillips. That was decided in 2018 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said at the time that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had acted with anti-religious bias against Phillips after he refused to bake a cake for two men who were getting married. The court did not rule on the larger issue of whether a business can invoke religious objections to refuse service to LGBT people.

Stern argued that Smith’s case has nothing to do with Jack Phillips because no one has gone to Smith for services, whereas a gay couple had asked Jack Phillips to make them a cake. “There is no real victim” in the Lorie Smith case, Stern said. Stern left out the fact that by simply posting on her website that her faith makes it impossible for her to make wedding websites for gay couples, Lorie Smith would be violating Denver law. She could be prosecuted just as much as Jack Phillips was, and if history is a guide, she will be.

In other words, the new model for Supreme Court reporters is to make it crystal clear where their biases lie — if they weren’t already obvious. Complete reporting, including back stories on the players involved and the genesis of cases as they make their way to the high court, is necessary, but not when it comes to cases brought by conservatives or Christians — or anyone else who is to the right of the staff of Slate.

In those cases, reporters can just do hit pieces — or show up at the homes of the justices and stomp their feet and yell.

Mark Judge is an award-winning journalist and the author of  The Devil's Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi . He is also the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Damn Senators, and A Tremor of Bliss.