What do you get when you cross a Pulitzer-Prize winner with a Fox News antagonist of Bill O’Reilly and a punchy staff writer for the New Yorker? Just another typical night of discussion at HLS, apparently. Moderated by Noah Feldman and sponsored by the HLS Law and the Arts Initiative, the evening elicited banter and frank colloquy on marrying the media with the law among three highly regarded journalists who also happen to be HLS alumni: James B. Stewart’76, Pulitzer Prize Winner, 3-time Loeb Award Winner, and NYT Bestselling Author of Den of Thieves and Disney War; Jeffrey Toobin’86, New Yorker Staff Writer, CNN Legal Correspondent, and NYT Bestselling Author of The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson and The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court; and Lis Wiehl ’87, Legal Analyst, Fox News and Co-Host, The Radio Factor, Author of The 51% Minority: How Women Still Are Not Equal and What You Can Do About It, and Winning Every Time: How to Use the Skills of a Lawyer in the Trials of Your Life.
Before they were bestselling journalists and media pundits, however, Stewart, Toobin and Wiehl all did time at big firms. “I never intended to stay at Cravath longer than three years,” said Stewart, “and then literally one day someone who knew I wanted to make the switch to writing approached me about getting in on the ground floor of what became American Lawyer magazine.” Wiehl’s story was a bit more happenstance, but she advocated being focused and proactive. “I had taken a class on the 1st Amendment from [New York Times columnist] Anthony Lewis… after working at a firm in Seattle for a bit, I contacted him about putting me in touch with Jonathan Landman at the New York Times… I worked on the law page at the Times for three years.”
While all three panelists had worked on their college papers or done amateur radio, none foresaw the media opportunities that became available after HLS when, in the early 1990s, the networks discovered the need for legal analysts to interpret the legalese of nationally headlining cases. When asked by Feldman about reporting on the ‘crimes of the century’ and how they explain the legal implications of the stories they cover, the panelists admitted that it is a struggle. “Crime is an incubator of stories,” said Stewart,” that sweeps in elements of public discourse that include race, gender, celebrity, you name it.” Toobin agreed. “The O.J. Simpson case was a perfect combo of high and low in terms of the legal value attached to issues of race and sex… but it was also interesting and entertaining. The challenge is to invest the sleazy coverage with a level of intelligence,” he said, alluding to the Duke rape case. Stewart’s view on the mass media onslaught was less optimistic. “I tend to stay away from larger cases… the phalanx of cameras and the circus of the mass media freaks me out,” he said.
