Washington bureau chief Dick Stevenson sent out the following at the New York Times:
Over the last several years, Jodi Kantor has added to her remarkable catalog of groundbreaking, high-impact journalism by turning her attention to the Supreme Court, an institution that is as lacking in transparency as it is powerful. Through her investigative talents, courage and sheer determination, she has produced one revelatory story after another about the court and the justices. And in doing so, she has further cemented our belief in the opportunity – and responsibility – to cover the judicial branch with the same spirit of inquiry and accountability that we bring to the executive and legislative branches.
All of which is a preamble to some very exciting news: Jodi is joining our Supreme Court team full-time. She is taking on a new role intended to help us build on what she, Adam Liptak, Abbie Van Sickle and Ann Marimow have already achieved in making our court coverage the best in the business.
Jodi’s mission is to work closely with Roz Helderman, our Supreme Court editor, to identify ambitious reporting targets and use the full range of skills she has honed as an investigative journalist to help us to more systematically scrutinize the court, the justices and the ecosystem of lawyers, money, influence and ideology that circles them. Jodi will also help us to accelerate our efforts to explore and master new ways of telling stories and reaching our audiences wherever they are. And she will play a role in helping us to continue to build our team and partner with journalists across the newsroom to examine the court and its wide-ranging effects on the country at such a vital time.
A quick review of her work on the court shows why we’re so thrilled to be collaborating more fully with Jodi. She and Adam worked together to reveal the inside story of how the court’s conservative majority overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the Dobbs decision, a piece that was a model of relentless reporting and careful writing. She examined the troubled investigation into the leak of that opinion and broke the news about the two provocative flags displayed at the homes of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Teamed up with Adam again, she did a deep dive into how Chief Justice John Roberts steered the court’s decisions in a historic trio of Jan. 6 cases that benefited Donald Trump. Most recently, her profile of Justice Amy Coney Barrett defied stereotypes of the jurist on the right and left.
Jodi, who sometimes happily describes herself as a law school dropout, had of course built her reputation as one of our foremost investigative reporters long before she started writing about the court. In her Times bio, she says, “I’m interested in stories that others assume can’t be told.” She’s often found a way to tell just those stories. Along with Megan Twohey, she broke the Harvey Weinstein story, triggering the #MeToo movement, a body of work for which they won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. She exposed troubling workplace practices at Amazon and Starbucks. And she’s a pretty good political reporter, too – some of us remember the terrific work she did in bringing Barack and Michelle Obama to life in such a textured way during the 2008 campaign and its aftermath.
The addition of Jodi is evidence of our commitment to continue investing in coverage of the court and to expand the Washington bureau’s ambitions to meet the challenges of the moment with fearless, sophisticated, fair and independent journalism.
Please congratulate her and officially welcome her to our ranks.
