How the Controversial Confirmation Hearing of Brett Kavanaugh Circulated through the Media

Juan Gallegos, Natalija Demitrijevic, and Emma Reese Hendricks

November 21, 2020

On October 6, 2018, the United States Senate voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. This decision ensued just weeks after women, namely Christine Blasey Ford, came forward accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct and indeed sent the functionality of the political world into significant turmoil. While Democrats called for further investigations and impeachment, President Donald Trump and Republican elites staunchly defended the embattled judge. But amid that furor, the media, and more specifically the New York Times, also weathered fierce criticism regarding how they framed the news and promoted it through the realms of social media. This timeline analyzes the media’s choice of coverage in reference to the Kavanaugh story, both good and bad, and the responses from both ends of the spectrum: conservatives who persistently defended the Supreme Court Justice nominee and liberal feminists who fought tooth and nail against his confirmation in the wake of the #MeToo movement.