Linda Greenhouse | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Greenhouse in 2019 | |
| Born | Linda Joyce Greenhouse (1947-01-09)January 9, 1947 (age 78) New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Radcliffe College (BA) Yale University (MSL) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Hannah Fidell |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize (1998) Henry J. Friendly Medal (2002) |
Linda Joyce Greenhouse (born January 9, 1947) is an American legal journalist who is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law atYale Law School.[1] She is aPulitzer Prize-winningreporter who has covered theUnited States Supreme Court for nearly three decades forThe New York Times.[2] Since 2017, she is the president of theAmerican Philosophical Society,[3] and a member of thePhi Beta Kappa Senate.[4]
Greenhouse was born in aJewish family[5][6] inNew York City, to H. Robert Greenhouse, a physician and professor of psychiatry atHarvard Medical School, and Dorothy (née Greenlick). She received herBachelor of Arts degree in government fromRadcliffe College in 1968, where she was elected toPhi Beta Kappa. She received her Master of Studies in Law fromYale Law School in 1978,[7][8] during which time she was a student ofRobert Bork.[9]
Greenhouse began her 40-year career atThe New York Times covering state government in the paper's bureau inAlbany.[2] After completing her master's degree on aFord Foundation fellowship, she returned to theTimes and covered 29 sessions of the Supreme Court from 1978 to 2007,[10] with the exception of two years during the mid-1980s during which she coveredCongress.[7] Since 1981, she has published over 2,800 articles in theTimes.[11] She has been a regular guest on thePBS programWashington Week.[12]
In 2008, Greenhouse accepted an offer fromThe New York Times for an early retirement at the end of the Supreme Court session in the summer of 2008.[13][14] Seven of the nine sitting Justices attended a goodbye party for Greenhouse on June 12, 2008.[14]
In 2010, Greenhouse and co-authorReva Siegel put out a book on the development of the abortion debate prior to the 1973Supreme Court ruling on the subject:BeforeRoe v. Wade. This was largely a selection of primary documents, though with some commentary.
From 2010 to 2021, Greenhouse wrote a biweekly opinion column forThe New York Times, centered on the Supreme Court.[15]
Greenhouse criticized US policies and actions atGuantanamo Bay,Abu Ghraib, andHaditha in a 2006 speech at Harvard University.[16] In it, Greenhouse said she started crying a few years back at aSimon & Garfunkel concert because hergeneration hadn't done a better job of running the country than previous generations.[17]
Greenhouse was awarded thePulitzer Prize in Journalism (Beat Reporting) in 1998 "for her consistently illuminating coverage of the United States Supreme Court."[7] In 2004, she received the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism[18] and theJohn Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism.[19] She was a Radcliffe Institute Medal winner in 2006.[20]
When she was at Radcliffe, she said in a speech given in 2006, "I was the Harvard stringer for theBoston 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, theHerald would not even give me an interview, and neither would theBoston Globe, because these newspapers had no interest in hiring women."[17]
Greenhouse has expressed her personal views as an outspoken advocate for abortion and critic of conservative religious values,[16] and a 2006 report onNPR questioned whether this compromised the appearance that she maintains journalistic neutrality on such matters.New York Times public editorDaniel Okrent said that he has never received a single complaint of bias in Greenhouse's coverage.[16]
Ed Whelan, writing in a blog associated withNational Review, suggested that Greenhouse had an obligation to her readers to inform them when she reported on a Supreme Court case for which her husband,Eugene Fidell, had submitted anamicus brief,[21] such as in theHamdan case and theBoumediene case.Clark Hoyt, the public editor of theNew York Times, opined that the paper "should have clued in readers" to Greenhouse's conflict, but defended the neutrality of her coverage.[22]Emily Bazelon andDahlia Lithwick, writing inSlate, complained that theNew York Times "had failed to stand up" for Greenhouse and defended Greenhouse from Whelan's criticism.[23] They quotedYale Law School professorJudith Resnik who pointed out that Whelan had been unable to point to any actual sign of bias.
She married lawyerEugene R. Fidell on January 1, 1981, inWashington, D.C., in aJewish ceremony.[24] Together they have one daughter, filmmakerHannah Fidell (born October 7, 1985).[25]
Another liberal Jewish commentator for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse, likened the situation of illegal immigrants in Arizona to that of the Jews of Nazi-occupied Denmark.
Whelan didn't point to any concrete problem with Greenhouse's handling of these cases. That should be easier to do than with almost any other reporter, given that Greenhouse relies primarily on court filings and oral arguments that are publicly available in their entirety, as Yale law professor Judith Resnik points out to us. Unable to point to any actual bias, Whelan resorts to the petulant claim that the effect of Fidell's involvement in the detainee cases 'would be impossible to separate ... from the broader political bias that pervades so much of Greenhouse's reporting.
Previously the Pulitzer Prize for Specialized Reporting from 1985–1990 | ||
| 1986–2000 |
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| 2001–2006 |
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