The Controversial Public Statements of Justice Alito.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito used an essay in The Wall Street Journal to pre-empt a forthcoming investigative story by ProPublica about his fishing trip to Alaska with a hedge fund billionaire. Alito used the essay to guess at the points in the unpublished story and rebut them in advance. The Journal's editorial page was criticized for helping the subject of another news organization's investigation "pre-but" the findings. ProPublica's "no surprises" approach involves taking a risk, allowing subjects to "spit in our soup," but the practice is a matter of both accuracy and fairness.