From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. And I'm Bob Garfield. Last week.

Some breaking news. United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died. The longest serving justice on the court apparently died from natural causes.

Justice was found dead on Saturday at a West Texas ranch.

Appointed in 1986 by President Reagan,

Justice Antonin Scalia was one of the most outspoken and conservative justices on the bench,

known for his caustic dissents and a self-proclaimed originalist interpretation of the Constitution, which he once called

a dead rather than living document. Or, as I prefer to call it, enduring. It means today not what

current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.

And he had a favorite passage, too.

I think if you had to pick one freedom that is the most essential to the functioning of a democracy,

it has to be freedom of speech.

Because democracy means persuading one another and then ultimately voting and the majority rules.

You can't run such a system if there is musling of one point of view. Scali's devotion to free speech and First Amendment

fundamentalism led him to support the majority on Citizens United, you know, about money being

speech.

But he didn't necessarily apply the same standard to more liberal causes.

In fact, a 2014 analysis found that Scalia voted to protect speech on conservative causes three times as often as he did for liberal causes.

For instance, he voted against First Amendment protections for a government whistleblower

and for a student expressing a pro-drug message, among others.

Obviously, the shock over Justice Scalia's unexpected passing last weekend

was instantly and predictably followed by furious speculation on a successor, especially on the

timing of the appointment and on what this might mean for, what's that word again?

...