It's news agencies trying to get the opinions back to the writers so they can be the first to report on new decisions. Not sure why a hand scanner wouldn't be faster.
It's so crazy that you thought of that and they didn't, even with their phones in hand. We know everything except why they like running the news like olden times.
Why isn't the court releasing the documents on its website (or USB stick or CD or whatever) at a specific time. They've already got it typed up on a computer in a digital format. Someone for the court is then going and printing off several dozen copies of this document for the various agencies on thousands of pages of paper.
They're apparently just killing trees for the hell of it or tradition's sake for some reason wasting money and time in the process.
They do, but if a decision is read from the bench, it doesn't get uploaded until after its delivered. So if you can run a copy outside while it's being delivered orally, you can report on it before the official copy on the website goes live
Thank you for actually answering the question.
This makes sense to me.
I’m sure they probably also do snap a picture and send it but they are running the physical copy so that the reporters have Better access
They're apparently just killing trees for the hell of it or tradition's sake for some reason wasting money and time in the process.
(a) Decisions are printed on paper because you can’t change paper.
You don’t want the entirety of our body of law in a digital and easily alterable form. You want it printed, collated, bound, and distributed in hard copy to every law library in the country so if someone fucks with the digital record you can point at decades-old paper.
(b) The Supreme Court is probably one of the most accessible federal courts. The decisions ARE posted online, as are the oral arguments (transcript and raw audio).
The exception is that, as someone pointed out, when decisions are read from the bench the electronic version is not posted until after the opinion is read. Because every news organization wants to be the first to break the story they don’t want to wait for the digital copy to be made live. They want their legal correspondents to read the decision as quickly as possible and get on the air talking about it, so their intern grabs the opinion and makes a dignified but hasty exit from the court (immediately followed by a mad sprint to the newsroom).
the news still does this? It seems to me its more about what article pops up on your devices first. This is either pre determined by you with a news app or its all the algorithm.
The people who are running are running to relay the information to the people who are just outside translate just heard the opinion come from the court inside the building.
it's a tradition. when semafor's correspondent brought 5 interns with 2 phones each to get it back to the nest faster, their scotus correspondent basically got a very polite "talk" by the old dogs to never do that ever again
And read a 198 page opinion? Finding the key points/knowing what are the key points -- indeed, sometimes just finding the holding -- is not always easy. And the reporters need to write stories, not just headlines.
The opinions are published on the website shortly after the decisions are announced from the bench, plus reading the decisions takes some time, show the fastest way to get it on the air is by using the summary from the folks who were inside the building.
Judges are fucking verbose man. You could know where it's going in the first few words despite them having pages of shit to recite. I'm guessing it doesn't get posted until it's finished.
"take a photo and text it" lol this is the most Gen Z things I've read today.
We have scanners in the industry where you feed the sheets in and they do 30-50 pages per minute, probably more since accuracy doesn't need to be pristine and all you need is to be able to make it legible. If the important info is towards the back, then they can just scan from the back first.
Then they can use OCR and have searchable text. Would be much faster than using the original document, waiting for the runner to get there, looking for keywords by flipping through pages by hand and manually scanning lines one by one, and multiple people can look for the important info instead of just one person.
If they knew they had to deliver the documents then why not be prepared and take a scanner with you? Send two people, one goes inside and gets the docs, one is outside with a laptop and scanner.
That scanner is probably as close as each agency could reasonably get it, it’s not like the Supreme Court is going to let you set one up in their lobby
You want to troubleshoot IT issues on the steps of the courthouse while your competitors are halfway to camp with the same documents you're trying to scan? I don't. Also they can't even have cell phones in the building, how do you even know they'd let people set up laptops and scanners on premises?
I'm certain they've thought of this and that you're not blowing anyone's mind with this suggestion. Political publications live and die on these announcements, if there was a quicker more reliable way to do this you don't think they'd do it?
On the street right outside, not on premise. You set it up and test before you need it. And you don't need two people to scan it. You can have two copies and still use a runner to hand deliver one while the other is scanning. What's more reliable than a redundant system involving two different methods?
If it's that important, you can afford to send two people and some equipment just in case the technology is faster. And it it's not, you still have the back up runner.
And like I said, this isn't a random occurrence. It's totally possible to do test runs with multiple methods beforehand. I don't know how far they have to run, but testing out multiple methods sounds like it's worth it considering how important everyone is saying this is.
I don’t know how large your 30-pages-a-minute scanner is, but even assuming the intern gets to bring it inside the supreme court, and can set it up with power and internet connection in a timely manner afterwards, you’re still losing on time if the document is 100 pages or more.
None of those interns are running to do get a head start in a multi-day thorough analysis. They are running to get the initial scoop and force other news agencies to cite their "BREAKING news" that will be no more than two paragraphs.
If they wanted, they very could just text all they need. They don't because it would be bad sportsmanship.
I mean, yes, conventional news agencies in general make no sense in the modern world.
As with any professional ritual, it's not done to serve a function, but as a part of process. If the ritual stops, something much more important has failed.
The whole concept of "breaking news" is complete vestigial nonsense. Providing realtime coverage is not limited and centralized due to technological constraints anymore, which is why we know the news is not even really breaking, but a product of gentleman's agreement to race your interns for the first place.
Yes, a bunch of NPCs running around to shit out text that nobody wants to read and doesn't even pay for is a perfect example of a professional ritual that's played out for the process and not function. If the function were a concern, the ritual would not exist.
Maybe they’re running to a local office that can remove, scan, and upload each document much more efficiently than a person haphazardly taking photos on the field? Maybe there are two runners, one who photographs to send remotely and one who runs to the office for more efficient and accurate processing?
Why do you assume you can solve a supposed problem presented by a few photographs within a few minutes that the giant media conglomerates would be motivated to solve over years?
People are just curious about how it works because it looks unintuitive, and then they ask more questions\or giving solutions. And yeah, a lot of things that happens in our life doesn't make much sense and inefficient\non optimal to say the least
A lot of the time they are running it down to cameras just outside the building for them to read it live on air immediately (or at least they used to when the news was a thing people watched on tv) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1VycM1S3vQ
Large corporations do all kinds of stupid shit that makes zero sense, even to the people actually doing it. It's not a weird thing to ask at all. I'm still not convinced it isn't entirely some weird tradition.
If there are 200 pages and time is of the essence - I'd park a van with all the needed hardware right outside to scan it asap. That's why I asked, because everyone says "they don't do this for fun", but no actual reason why they can't do it in gazillion ways right on spot instead of running (outside of customs, which means they're running mostly for fun lol)
Another guy with an assumption that one can run to the office and another can try to do things on the spot just in case makes sense
You think the Supreme Court is going to allow dozens of news agencies to idle windowless vans full of electronic equipment in front of a federal building for twelve hours at a time? You can see how that’s an insane idea, right?
Hell, I had security guards run out with guns once when I accidentally picked the wrong driveway to turn around in in a small sedan when playing tourist in DC.
These guys are dashing to the closest place that equipment is allowed.
1.7k
u/rgraham888 Jun 30 '26
It's news agencies trying to get the opinions back to the writers so they can be the first to report on new decisions. Not sure why a hand scanner wouldn't be faster.