The Supreme Court’s strangest media tradition is still running

In 2026, the fastest news delivery system in Washington still appears to be a sweaty intern in sneakers.

After the Supreme Court handed down a series of major rulings on June 30 — including a landmark decision on birthright citizenship and rulings on transgender athletes and campaign finance limits — interns were once again seen sprinting from the court with printed opinions in hand.

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The footage quickly turned into its own internet event, partly because the visual is irresistible and partly because everyone had the same questions: what is this tradition, and why are they still doing this?

Let us introduce the "running of the interns," one of Washington's strangest and most beloved rituals.

The tradition has existed in some form for decades, dating back to the print era of Supreme Court coverage. Because recording devices are banned inside the courtroom, hand-delivered opinions were once the fastest way for news organizations to get major rulings from the Court to reporters outside.

That job often fell to interns at media outlets such as CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and other news organizations covering the Court. They would wait for printed opinions inside or near the building, grab copies as soon as they were available, and race them to producers and correspondents stationed outside so their networks could report the decision as quickly as possible.

The "running of the interns" became a recognizable Washington media spectacle during the Bush v. Gore case in 2000, when TV networks were racing to report the decision that effectively settled a presidential election. In the years that followed, interns kept running on major decision days, including the 2012 Affordable Care Act ruling and the 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, which popularized the tradition.

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The routine is simple: interns wait for printed opinions, grab the documents, and race them across the Court plaza to producers and correspondents preparing to go live. It's part breaking news, part relay race, part free cardio.

This tradition comes at a very digital time, when the Supreme Court posts opinions online — and PDFs are often available within moments of a ruling. I mean, the rule of birthright citizenship was posted online by SCOTUS the moment it was announced.

Plus, during the pandemic (March 2020 to June 2022), the Court actually released opinions exclusively online. Once that became normalized, the old paper relay started to feel less like a breaking-news necessity and more like a relic from another media era.

After this change, the concept was declared extinct. But the ritual clearly still has legs (pun intended), and the "run" is back, both IRL and online.

Many online are admiring the tradition — some to the point of tears — and the interns' hustle. Others find it absurd and intense. Some are tagging sneaker brands, begging them to turn the scene into an ad.

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In a world where every major ruling instantly becomes a PDF, a push alert, a live blog, and a social post, there's something refreshing about watching young people sprint through the streets in business casual attire, driven purely by their love of breaking news.