Sandra Day O'Connor was the opposite of media circus politicians. Move over, George Santos

Sandra Day O’Connor’s death Friday instantly became national, even international, news.

Which is of course fitting — as the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, her death was important because her life was even more so. Words like “pioneering” and “groundbreaking” were thrown around a lot, deservedly so.

“An icon for women across America has died,” Andrea Mitchell said on MSNBC. “This sad day for a great lady, and the country.”

And then George Santos got kicked out of the U.S. Congress.

So much for O’Connor.

Cable news immediately went into full Santos mode. National media websites, like those of the New York Times and Washington Post, initially had O’Connor’s death as the main story on their homepages. When Santos got the boot, O’Connor got moved down the page.

'A person for all seasons': Sandra Day O'Connor's life remembered by US leaders

O'Connor's death made fascinating coverage

She wasn’t ignored. The second biggest story in the Times and the Post isn’t exactly anonymity. MSNBC devoted a segment to her later in the morning, as did CNN and Fox News. Eventually, the Times moved her obituary back above Santos. It was a fascinating evolution of coverage.

And somehow it all felt fitting. After the initial, deserved, media explosion when President Ronald Reagan named her as his choice for the Supreme Court seat, she settled into a career of quiet excellence there. Her decisions, especially concerning the 2000 election and, later, a woman’s right to abortion, certainly made news.

Pete Williams, the former NBC News justice correspondent, noted that “in the later years when O’Connor was on the court, it really was her court. As Sandra went, so went the court.”

But mostly she did her job. And over time, that wins out over a circus like Santos’ expulsion.

Remembered by: Sandra Day O'Connor backed Roe v. Wade and gay rights, and helped choose President Bush

Her confirmation hearing, arguably the most newsworthy in history at the time, wasn’t a lurid media sideshow. She didn’t make headlines for accepting lavish vacations or rides on private jets. She did her work, she did it well, she retired and she left it at that. No one scales the heights she did without having some ego and drive. But she was a throwback to when you didn’t tell everybody about it.

“She knew not to pick stupid fights,” Evan Thomas, a former Newsweek editor at large said on MSNBC.

If that sounds like a dig at the current court, perhaps it was.

And if it weren’t, Joan Biskupic, a CNN legal analyst who wrote the book “Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice,” made it explicit.

'Today America lost a trailblazer'

“She was the deciding vote on abortion rights,” Biskupic said. “She was the deciding vote on racial affirmative action on campuses. She was the deciding vote on the separation of church and state. And she also wrote those opinions. She was just a master of bringing together a real consensus on the court. That recalls a whole different Supreme Court than we have today.”

Indeed.

The court has since reversed a number of those decisions, as Biskupic noted.

The rollercoaster coverage of O'Connor's death feels like a throwback

“Today America lost a trailblazer,” Dana Bash said on CNN.

Despite that, for a time at least O'Connor yielded the stage.

Don’t misunderstand, Santos’ exit is historic — he is only the sixth member of Congress in history to be expelled, the first in more than 20 years. That’s news, and has to be covered. Certainly, Israel resuming airstrikes in Gaza also requires complete coverage.

And there was something about the coverage of O’Connor’s death — the initial headline, events overtaking it, her legacy ultimately demanding that the story not be ignored — that felt almost retro, reminiscent of a time long gone, a time less dominated by purely partisan slap fights and sensational coverage.

Which makes hers a story all the more worth telling.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X, formerly known as Twitter: @goodyk.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Sandra Day O'Connor was quiet opposite of clowns like George Santos