Scalia to Go Before the News Cameras

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who makes no secret of his disdain for the news media, has agreed to appear in a segment of CBS News' "60 Minutes" on April 27, the eve of the publication date for a new book he has co-authored.

A knowledgeable source who requested anonymity confirmed Monday that the top-rated newsmagazine asked Scalia for the interview and he accepted, in spite of his oft-stated view that judges should stand apart from the modern media culture.

Correspondent Lesley Stahl has already conducted several taped interviews with Scalia that range well beyond his book -- called "Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges" -- and delve into his career and upbringing.

In the life of the Court and the career of Justice Scalia, this is a remarkable, Nixon-goes-to-China moment. No justice has excoriated the news media like Scalia has, and it would have surprised no one if he had completed his tenure on the high court without ever consenting to a broadcast interview.

Earlier in his tenure, when he gave a speech at a law school and an unsuspecting local television news crew showed up, Scalia would impetuously refuse to go on stage until the cameras left. In what has become known as the "Hattiesburg Incident" of 2004, deputy U.S. marshals ordered reporters to erase audiotape recordings of a speech Scalia was giving in Mississippi. The marshals believed they were enforcing Scalia's anti-press policies. Scalia apologized, and said his policies had been misunderstood.

But when the reporters lodged protests with the marshal's service, an internal investigation ensued. In a deposition taken during the investigation and later released under the Freedom of Information Act, one of the marshals quoted Scalia as saying, earlier in the day, "I hate the media, don't like the media, I don't know why they're here. I'm not talking to them." That same day,according to another deposition, when the question of talking to local media came up, a reporter overheard Scalia saying, "I don't do interviews. I don't talk to the press.

"The "60 Minutes" appearance is the centerpiece of a limited round of publicity Scalia will be doing to promote sales of the book he wrote with Bryan Garner. Garner is the legal writing expert whose company LawProse Inc. runs seminars for law firms around the country. The two decided to write the book after Garner interviewed Scalia and seven other justices about legal writing and advocacy last year. Those tapes are available on Garner's Web site.

C-SPAN announced Monday that Scalia would appear in a live exchange with high school students today on C-SPAN3.Scalia is not the first justice to appear on television to launch a book, by any means; just last year Justice Clarence Thomas' memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," was published the day after a "60 Minutes" appearance. Current and former Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Stephen Breyer and William Rehnquist have also done televised interviews to publicize their works.

But for Scalia to join the trend after decades of disdaining this kind of attention is remarkable. He may have felt encouraged in a general sense by the lighter and more open leadership of the Court by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., which contrasts sharply with the cloistered style of Rehnquist, Roberts' predecessor. The 72-year-old Scalia may also have felt that at this stage in his life, the time has come to unburden himself and tell his story on a stage broader than the Supreme Court.