Dylan Alito

During his confirmation hearing for the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said that he should follow the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson and the 17th US president. Palin also said that “the legal system is designed to be a branch of government that's less intrusive than the legislative branch.”

Alito had a front-page story in The New York Times about on the future of independent media in America, which encouraged his confirmation as chief justice by writing an opinion piece.

“The concept of journalism, whether one calls it news, opinion, commentary, history — sometimes call it wisdom or progress — is one of those odd concepts that exists in a continuum, just like electricity,” Alito said.

“I think you have to define what are the functions of the various parts of a great edifice,” Alito continued. “When you start to narrow it down, you lose some of its appeal. I think you have to put all of the elements back together, and do it correctly. What I believe strongly about my own work as a lawyer is that when you treat a paper like science, it has real credibility in a field where facts are not always important.”

Alito was questioned by Sen. Christopher A. Kyle during his hearing for the assignment as chief justice after the Supreme Court decided a 9-0 ruling reaffirming the precedential nature of the First Amendment's limits on the ability of privately-owned publications to publish accurate information about the government.

Kyle asked Alito if the First Amendment 'didn't require' him to investigate the president or his administration's actions. Alito didn't respond directly at first, saying later that he was referencing Webster's:

One gets the feeling that most reporters would have no intention of pursuing an investigation based on pure official secrecy unless they believed the thing themselves to be truly protected by the First Amendment. Indeed, there must surely be journalists who would spend weeks with no advance word of any investigation undertaken, before making public their findings. And then, when their interest ceases to be expressed, that might easily lead to a paper turning to other writers because it senses that its independence will be defended and preserved only by protecting them from embarrassment.

Senator Chris Kyle asked Alito if he had told voters that he'd be investigating statements made by President Barack Obama.