Fair is fair

Back on Sunday, I wrote about reporters having their recordings of Antonin Scalia's speech seized and deleted.

There's an update.

Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court has apologized to two Mississippi reporters who were required to erase recordings of a speech he gave at a high school there on Wednesday.

The reporters, for The Associated Press and a local newspaper, had been told by a deputy federal marshal to destroy the recordings at the end of a half-hour speech by the justice at the Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg.

He also wrote to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Calling its concerns on the matter "well justified," he said "You are correct that the action was not taken at my direction. I was as upset as you were."

Not everyone was happy, however, as Scalia said he would revise his personal policy "so as to permit recording for use of the print media" but said he'd continue to ban video recordings.

Frank Fisher, Mississippi bureau chief for The Associated Press, said the apparent apology to its reporter, Denise Grones, represented progress. But he, too, noted discomfort at the varying treatment of the broadcast press.

"The First Amendment covers all of us," he said.

Frankly, I'm surprised he apologized at all. Even if it is a modified, limited, hang-out, it's still a good thing.