A court term ends, a career change begins
* Editor's Note: National Constitution Center president and CEO Jeffrey Rosen will interview Lyle for an upcoming episode of We the People. Send us your questions for Lyle by Wednesday, June 28 at 2:00 p.m. using this anonymous form.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., on Friday morning announced that the Supreme Court will issue the remaining decisions for the current term on Monday morning. That also will mean that I am winding up my active, daily writing for Constitution Daily, and concluding my career as a “regular” on the court beat, after 58 years, and as a working journalist, after 69 years.
My wife and I have been discussing retirement for some time, and now seems to be a good time to try it out. I hope to do some occasional writing for Constitution Daily in coming months. My current assignment will be to continue to follow the news and write for the Daily through the end of July.
I have some teaching commitments at the University of Baltimore School of Law for the fall semester, but my plans beyond that are indefinite.
It has always been my belief that a journalist can only succeed at the craft if he or she is blessed with perceptive, intelligent and occasionally skeptical readers. Thank you, all, for taking this journey with me.
* Editor’s Note: Last June, Lyle joined us as our official Supreme Court correspondent after working as our constitutional adviser and a columnist since 2011. Here is what we published last June about Lyle.
Legendary journalist Lyle Denniston is joining the National Constitution Center’s Constitution Daily blog as its full-time Supreme Court correspondent, the Center announced today.
Denniston has written for Constitution Daily as a contributor and its constitutional literacy adviser since June 2011. In his new role, Denniston will report at the Court on the constitutional aspects of cases and broader trends involving the Court. He also will participate in other activities related to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
"Lyle Denniston is the Dean of Supreme Court reporters and I’m thrilled and honored that he will be writing full time for the National Constitution Center,” said Jeffrey Rosen, President & CEO of the National Constitution Center. "Lyle has been a model of fair-minded, balanced writing about the justices for nearly six decades and it’s impossible to imagine a better Supreme Court correspondent for Constitution Daily."
Prior to his new role at the Center, which starts this summer, Denniston has been an independent reporter and contractor at the Supreme Court website SCOTUSblog.com for more than 12 years. During that time, SCOTUSblog earned numerous accolades, including the 2013 Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media.
Denniston has covered the Supreme Court since 1958, when Earl Warren, Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter sat on the high court.
"When I came on board to write for Constitution Daily, I was intrigued by the idea of taking part in 'smart conversations on the Constitution.' I hope that I have helped maintain that standard. Now, it will be my challenge and my pleasure to do more to make sense of the Supreme Court in and outside the constitutional realm for our readers. As I finish my tour at SCOTUSblog.com, I am delighted to now enter a new and closer relationship with the superb team already at the Center and at the Daily."
In the past, Denniston has written for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the American Lawyer, the Washington Star, the Nebraska City News-Press, and the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal. His commentary has also been featured on National Public Radio.
Denniston is a member of the Hall of Fame of the Society of Professional Journalists and Nebraska Press Association Hall of Fame.
A native of Nebraska, Denniston is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Georgetown University. He is also the author of the definitive book on Supreme Court journalism, "The Reporter and the Law: Techniques for Covering the Courts.”