July 1, 2026
NPR Reporter Apologizes To Justice Samuel Alito After Falsely Reporting His Retirement
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RSS Feed NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg wrote a formal apology to Justice Samuel Alito for publishing a report about his retirement, saying she was “so, so sorry.” It was a shocking headline that was up for only a few minutes before it was replaced with a note from the editor saying the article was “published in error.” NPR explained Totenberg misheard an announcement at the Supreme Court, Totenberg saying “it was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism.”
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Wednesday, July one, and there were a lot of huge headlines coming out of the Supreme Court this week, none bigger than the headline that said Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. It was wrong. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Rob's. Mistakes like this in media this big are rare to hear the reasons why it was made. For folks like you and me who've been in the industry for decades, three decades a piece, almost, we're confused as hell.
00:00:38
Speaker 2: This is inexplicable, and considering the source, it's even more shocking because this was a false headline generated mistakenly by NPR.
00:00:51
Speaker 1: That's NPR. That's a big mistake to make. That's a huge Samuel Alito, just given the times, give it all that we're in, been the heightened political dilemma that we find ourselves and have been in, given how big their decisions are. To hear that any Supreme Court justice is retiring Robes is some of the biggest breaking news you're gonna have.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: Oh, it's earth shattering news to hear, and it rarely happens where you hear about a Supreme Court justice either stepping down because a lot of time these are lifetime appointments, so it's not something that we even anticipate, let alone report often. So yes, for NPR to report Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Supreme Court's opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, is retiring. The Court announced Tuesday. That is what NPR posted around eleven a m.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: And so the country went crazy. Now this was you said it was yesterday, right, So Tuesday, if you know, some of the most consequential decisions of this came down on Tuesday, so robes, all eyes were on the court. Anyways, the end of their term. Transgender athletes came down, birthright citizenship came down. Those were the biggest most anticipated ones of the term.
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been waiting for months to hear what the Supreme Court would decide on those cases.
00:02:18
Speaker 3: And yes, this is the end of the.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: Term or the year for the Supreme Court. Basically, that's how they put it. So, yes, they saved the best for last. So we were all anticipating those headlines. No one was anticipating a headline saying that Alito was stepping down.
00:02:35
Speaker 1: So but because of where it came from and because of the day, it was Robes. It lent credibility and also adding to the credibility not just NPR. The reporter who broke the story is Robes, an eighty two year old woman who has covered the damn Supreme Court for almost fifty years.
00:02:54
Speaker 2: Five decades of experience. That is as veteran as it gets.
00:03:00
Speaker 3: Four reporters.
00:03:01
Speaker 2: She's like the Helen Thomas of of reporting. Basically that anyone who knows who that is with the red lipstick, that was the woman who when she said something, you knew it had to be true.
00:03:13
Speaker 1: Ada spot in the front row. Still see her sitting in the front row at the White House press room still all these years. But yes, you might not know her name, but rob this is a lady we're trying to explain. Given who it came from, the organization it came from, and the day it came Ropes, everybody scrambled. This put every newsroom almost in the country into chaos.
00:03:32
Speaker 2: Yes, Nina Totenberg is her name, and the headline went up. It didn't take long though for the retraction because it was caught pretty quickly. Was that the editor in chief? But to imagine even questioning your own reporter, But when you have a headline like that the question maybe should have come before it was published, and that is part of the debate that is certainly going on in their newsroom. Now they've discussed it. They went on their podcast and the editor in chief was saying, it's my fault, and then you had basically the reporter, Nina Totenberg saying, no, it's my fault.
00:04:04
Speaker 1: She took full responsibility, but Robes that she should have been stopped. Okay, this it should have gone out. We'll get into more. And they have a long, very detailed explanation, and we are going to read it because you do need to hear this is a very very important story. But Robes, it went up at about eleven am yesterday, and so it goes up on NPR. I don't have it in top of me. I'm not sure how quickly it came down, but within a half hour certainly it maybe even much faster than that.
00:04:29
Speaker 3: It was with I think it was within minutes.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: I don't know how many minutes it was caught and they quickly put up a retraction and.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Then but there's a big butt baby, because once MPR puts something out, everybody's running with it.
00:04:40
Speaker 2: Correct it gets reposted, it gets everywhere. Now that we're when we were doing this two person news network here, so we're going to multiple sources to look at things to make sure we have all the correct information. But so often now I'm so much more aware that so many news out let's just take from the AP. They'll take from NPR, they'll take from the New York Times, certain trusted organizations. They'll just basically copy and paste the story. Yes, and they'll take it as the word of God.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: Basically in Romes, when you hear an NPR and an AP New York Times, you don't question necessarily. We know they know what they're doing. You just you have to take them at their word. But rose, when everybody picks up on it and it goes out, NPR can retract in a few minutes. It takes a while for all those news outlets to get their attractions up. So the story roads was enormous for a little while. But the Supreme Court itself respond to this pretty quickly. Yeah, they had to say something because they saw how crazy things were getting out there.
00:05:49
Speaker 3: Uh, yes, it's fair to say.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: I believe one person said it sent shock waves through Washington, d C. So the Supreme Court said NPR story on Justice Alito is inaccurate, and any report they had about a court statement was inaccurate.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: So completely saying this is absolutely wrong, so they put that out. The retraction came from NPR saying, quote, earlier today, we erroneously published a story saying the Supreme Court Justice Semila Lito was retiring. He has not announced his retirement, and we have retracted the story. So let's get into now how robes this possibly could have happened. In short, the reporter claims she misheard something. Yeah, and you are literally scratching.
00:06:35
Speaker 2: I'm actually literally scratching my head because figuratively, and it's funny how your body just does something it's thinking. But it is a head scratcher because the way she describes it, she was in a rush to leave. She heard someone talk about She thought she heard someone say a retirement when they were talking about She said, what are they doing in there? And someone said something about a retirement? She said, I'm missed the s because they were talking about retirements. If I had heard the S, I wouldn't have assumed it was just as Alito.
00:07:07
Speaker 1: Huh, it was retirement announcements.
00:07:10
Speaker 3: Okay, sorry, there was the s.
00:07:11
Speaker 1: Anlis retirement announcement. That is the explanation that she heard retirement announcement singular and concluded that they must have been talking about Alito and published a story based on that and that alone.
00:07:34
Speaker 2: What it sounds like, it was a passing, quick, hurried, rushed conversation where yes, she could mis hear something, but we all know. And look, some people who I get journalists aren't necessarily considered the most trustworthy folks in a lot of people's minds, which is unfortunate, but I understand. But anyone who is a true journalist, who actually has been trained and is a credible journals knows the two source rules. Sometimes we need three, four or five sources to get a story published or a story on the air, because it matters. You can't just take one person's word for something. And we all know this, and certainly Totenberg knew this as well.
00:08:15
Speaker 3: Being an eighty two year old veteran reporter.
00:08:18
Speaker 2: She knows what you have to do before you publish something, and certainly something that's that serious, that significant. It baffles my mind that she didn't feel the need to double source it to confirm it, to make sure what she heard was real, because that is such a major headline.
00:08:37
Speaker 1: Okay, there is the problem. She didn't make sure what she heard was real and that she heard it correctly because in her mind, this is where I will give a little space, her source was the court itself. In her mind, she thought she heard an announcement about a retirement, and so her source was the Supreme Court because they said it. It just came out from them. Okay, fine, I can go with that. But Robes, she did not hear anybody say his name.
00:09:06
Speaker 3: That's where I'm confused.
00:09:08
Speaker 2: And so look, a lot of people have tried to read the tea leaves and think, well, maybe there is an announcement coming, and she just jumped the gun. And maybe she had already heard from several other people he was considering retiring, and so that is why she jumped to that conclusion, because it was already in the air, or it was certainly something being whispered or talked.
00:09:29
Speaker 1: About for years. We should be at in fairness, he is one that's been talked about year to year as possibly retiring. In fact, even recently they made announcement that he was interviewing law clerks, and this is something they do two three years out and they say, hey, he's obviously not retiring. This has been a matter of speculation, So I guess Robes was that in the back of her mind.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: But never once, and we'll give you her full explanation and her apology. She never once said that anyone specifically spoke his name when talking about retirements, So.
00:10:02
Speaker 1: I don't know how that happened. So Ropes, if you're the editor in chief at NPR, your reporter comes to you and say, hey, I got the scoop Alito is retiring.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: Who'd you hear it from?
00:10:11
Speaker 1: I heard them saying in the court. What did they say? Nobody else is reporting this? There are other reporters in there, like there's a how.
00:10:17
Speaker 3: Did you get the exclusive scoop?
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, if everybody else is in the you're the only one that has this, even though they may the announcement in front of everybody, it doesn't make sense. I don't get it, baby, I don't either. So that is why there is now more speculation that she must know something. Why did she just jump to that conclusion and guessing she was right or this was the right thing in what the scoop? Because that just doesn't for a veteran reporter. Hell for a rookie reporter.
00:10:44
Speaker 2: Oh, this is a fireable This is a fireable offense. If you're a rookie reporter, you would never keep your job. You would lose your job immediately.
00:10:52
Speaker 1: But you know what, there's supposed to be fail safe.
00:10:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, stop gaps where you have. That's why you have an editor in chief.
00:10:58
Speaker 2: That's why you have a certain hierarchy within a newsroom, so not one person can just go on and say they heard something or they think something's true. Not in these types of organizations. Yes, I know we have citizen journalists everywhere now and TikTok is where most people get their news. Now, we're not talking about that. This is legacy media. This is very different.
00:11:20
Speaker 1: So do you think Robes she got caught up and we always do trying to be first? Was this a rush to Absolutely?
00:11:27
Speaker 2: I absolutely think that's part of it, one hundred percent. Everyone That has always been when most people make mistakes is the rush to be first.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: So they put out a really lengthy explanation. So let's start here with the explanation that NPR put out, and they kind of did a step by step how this happened, So we'll start here. An NPR Legal affairs correspondent Nina todin Berg misheard an announcement about retirements as she was leaving the US Supreme Court on Tuesday. As a result, an NPR headline erroneously claimed that's the Preme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. The headline set atop a lengthy that recapped the conservative justice's tenure. The error was also reported on NPR's airwaves. Alito is not retiring. The story was wrong. Here's how it happened. Give them credit, and this was very important for them to do, to explain kind of behind the scenes. But op I still got questions.
00:12:18
Speaker 2: I do appreciate their transparency and full admission of wrongdoing.
00:12:23
Speaker 3: So they went on to say.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: Totenberg was reporting on a final day of the Supreme Court session on Tuesday. As she was leaving the court, Chief Justice John Roberts was announcing upcoming retirements. Totenberg wondered why everyone else wasn't leaving and asked someone outside the court. According to her interview that same day on All Things Considered, Totenberg asked a bystander what was going on? A bystander and the person replied retirement announcements, but Totenberg heard the reply in the singular announcement and assumed it was the notice that Alito was retiring.
00:13:00
Speaker 1: Baby, what the actual what that is? The part she knows something. There's gotta be more to this, robes a bystander, So it's like somebody she bumped into in the bathroom. What are we talking about? A bystander told you retirement announcements were going on, and you jumped to the conclusion. So she then didn't necessarily hear it.
00:13:27
Speaker 3: Oh she didn't hear it.
00:13:29
Speaker 2: Come she a bystander repeated what was going on in the court, and she didn't hear the s she claims. Now they do explain, and this is true.
00:13:38
Speaker 3: I understand. We do the same thing with obituaries. They say.
00:13:40
Speaker 2: NPR had the lengthy story about Alito's retirement already written, because that's what newsrooms do in anticipation of significant retirements and even deaths. Absolutely true. Can confirm that is absolutely what newsrooms do. They went on to say Totenberg spoke with both her intern who was at the court with her, and NPR executive editor Krishnadev Kalamor and told them what she heard. Kalamar surfaced the story that NPR had previously prepared for the day Alito did announce his retirement and published it. The information was also broadcast on NPR NPR's airwaves. NPR was offering special live coverage of the court's decision on the birthright citizenship case. The story was published on NPR's website at ten fifty one am Eastern Time.
00:14:27
Speaker 3: And it was live for about five minutes. Okay, that's how long it was.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: It was up for longer periods on some member station websites. It was taken down and replaced with an editor's note by ten fifty seven am. The error was corrected on the broadcast at eleven o seven am. So look within it looks like fifteen minutes. Everything was corrected, but the cat was out of the bag and the wrong cat was out of the wrong bag.
00:14:55
Speaker 1: Well, I still and it is just because, yes, mistakes are made. Stakes at this level are rarely made. They are rare. You have some big ones every now yet, but they are rarely made. The explanation robes, you do get caught up. You're competitive, you're in a rush. If you have the scoop that Dan that Justice Alito is retiring. That is a very big story. That is a career making story. She's older, of course, and been around. But Robes, that is a significant story. You wanted to get the scoop. Why she would think though she heard it from a bystander, surely other people were gonna have it, and she was in a rush to beat them. Maybe I can imagine Robes when they use the word. A bystander told me that's tough. A bystander told me that retirement announcements were happening, and I heard the bystander say retirement announcement only, so it must be Alito. Let's publish it. Robes, that is a fireable if I'm not saying she should be fire But I don't understand that.
00:15:58
Speaker 2: I don't either, And then I don't understand. And look, she must have enough clout, enough credibility. She does obviously that the editor didn't question her. He didn't say who did you get this from? Exactly, because I'm not seeing this anywhere else. No one else is reporting that. That would be if you were anyone, maybe perhaps within the newsroom who was younger or a little less experienced, those questions might have been asked. I'm guessing they weren't because of who she was.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: That's fair, But rogues if she comes back and she says her source is the Supreme Court that in her mind, by talking to a bystander who heard Justice Alito say something was good enough that they.
00:16:33
Speaker 3: Must have heard.
00:16:34
Speaker 2: These rumors were there and they were ready to report it, and all she needed was one little spark and she said, we got it.
00:16:43
Speaker 3: That had to be what it was.
00:16:44
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a tough one, and she apologized. She's going out of her way to say, this is on me. It's the most embarrassing thing, the worst mistake I've ever made in my career. And this is a this is a tough one. But on the day where so many eyes were on the Supreme Court, it was like the worst day possible.
00:17:00
Speaker 3: It was tough.
00:17:01
Speaker 2: And she goes into just how tough it was. When we come back, we will actually read to you her official apology that she wrote to Justice Samuel Alito. And welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking about a shocking mistake made by a veteran NPR reporter who told the world that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had retired on the last day while the Supreme Court was in session handing out all these major, major decisions and rulings. It certainly sent shockwaves through DC for those ten to fifteen minutes. It was up and around, and they eventually retracted it, and she did apologize. Not just NPR apologizing to its readers and apologizing for the gaff, but she actually personally sent a letter to Justice Alito.
00:18:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she read it. And I assume she has relationships with all of these folks. She's covered with the Supreme Court that long. But she says she sent it to him. She was on what mprs, what radio.
00:18:15
Speaker 2: Shows, She did a podcast, their podcast All Things Considered there. It is, of course, so a very famous one indeed, And so yes, this was her apology to Alito. Dear Justice Alito, there are no words to adequately apologize for today's error in reporting your retirement.
00:18:32
Speaker 3: It was entirely my fault.
00:18:34
Speaker 2: I rushed out of the courtroom after the opinion announcements, and when I realized that the usual rush, the usual rush of folks after a few minutes, had not happened, I asked somebody, what was going on inside, to which the answer was retirement announcements. I didn't hear the s on announcements, and I assumed something no reporter should ever do, that you were retiring.
00:18:59
Speaker 1: Suppose she heard the s.
00:19:02
Speaker 2: Would that mean that suddenly she didn't think Alito was a part of it. It's really confusing. Her explanation doesn't fully explain. I don't feel like in its entirety how she leapt to that conflinition.
00:19:15
Speaker 1: She is one that deserves the benefit of the doubt. She's been around enough. But it just from our vantage point, from the look from experience, just it's confused. The explanation, it's never the crime, it's a cover up. And I was saying there's a cover up. But the explanation, Okay, if I heard announcements, I never would have assumed Alito was a part of that announcement.
00:19:38
Speaker 3: Well.
00:19:38
Speaker 2: No, And also just to have to say she knows this is painful as a reporter to have to explain. I asked somebody what was going on inside? Her source was somebody that is tough. Her source, babe, according to her, was somebody what that doesn't happen, It shouldn't happen, And she knows that, and she is paying the price. I did hear her on the All Things Considered podcast. They asked her if she had heard back from Aledo as of that recording.
00:20:11
Speaker 3: She had not, And he hasn't made any public statements.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: I haven't seen any there.
00:20:15
Speaker 2: Obviously, the justices are famously exceptionally private, so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to never hear a comment from him.
00:20:24
Speaker 1: You know, I know, I would. You know, I would love if he sent her some love. I would too, that would be cool. I don't know much about his person well, we don't know much about any of their personalities. We don't have from him like that except Kazanjie Brown Jackson has been on on Broadway.
00:20:38
Speaker 3: And she's doing She's she's the outlier.
00:20:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I enjoy it. Knock yourself out your spring Court justice, use that thing. But I just that doesn't make any sense. It's an embarrassing mistake. And maybe she's trying to lessen the embarrassment of it because sitting where she is rope, that she had anybody explaining this to her, with all the experience she had.
00:20:59
Speaker 3: She'd have follow questions say what the hell are you? She would have follow ups.
00:21:02
Speaker 1: It makes no sense. This reminds I believe it was Pamela Brown was. I still was seeing it at the time. You remember the Affordable Care Act, Yes, the big decision twenty twelve. This is the other one. I remember Supreme Court decision that everybody was in such a rush. News organizations changed their policies after this twenty twelve Affordable Care Act. President Obama. Supreme Court was making a decision about the Affordable Care Act, and CNN in particular went on and said that the Affordable Care Act had been struck down, had been struck down. That was one hundred percent wrong, and it was just the rush to be first. The rush to be first led them to be wrong. Anaroobes, I remember that case so so well, and news organizations had to back off and slow down, especially with Supreme Court decisions. Just read through the cucke. It's more important to be right than it is to be first.
00:21:55
Speaker 3: And you learned that in journalism one on one.
00:21:57
Speaker 2: And I know they tell you that, But when competition there you go, is all around you, and you've got a news director or you've got an editor on your butt to be exceptional, to get things first, to beat the competition. All those rules and all that stuff you learn in j school suddenly doesn't seem as important as it does to impress or at least satisfy your boss.
00:22:25
Speaker 1: Because that editor robes that that person, the boss is concerned that somebody flicking through the channels is going to pass by another channel and it says breaking news, Alito is retiring, and you don't have it up on your screen. The worst, they're going to keep watching that other channel. So that's what's in their minds. So we got to be first, got We certainly can't be behind. We can't be last. It just happens. And give this look. This woman's been doing this a long time. All respect to her. A mistake was made. She's a human being, and she made a bad, bad mistake.
00:22:58
Speaker 2: And she apologized and she owned it. She blamed no one else but herself.
00:23:02
Speaker 1: I still got questions, but we always appreciate your folks spending some time with us. Justice Thomas is not retiring either. John Roberts is hanging around for a little while. Who are they? Who else are they talking about possibly retiring?
00:23:17
Speaker 3: Not Corset Show, I haven't there's another one.
00:23:20
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas Thomas. I've certainly heard Alito obviously.
00:23:23
Speaker 1: Okay, you're gonna have to take that robe out off of his cold dead body. Chirs Thomas ain't going nowhere.
00:23:29
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
00:23:30
Speaker 1: He is going to ride at that.
00:23:32
Speaker 3: President Trump is grateful.
00:23:35
Speaker 1: No what a story, but folks, we appreciate. It's always spending a little time without Siam.
00:23:39
Speaker 2: T J.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: Holmes on the half of my dear Amy Robok talk to
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Wednesday, July one, and there were a lot of huge headlines coming out of the Supreme Court this week, none bigger than the headline that said Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. It was wrong. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Rob's. Mistakes like this in media this big are rare to hear the reasons why it was made. For folks like you and me who've been in the industry for decades, three decades a piece, almost, we're confused as hell.
00:00:38
Speaker 2: This is inexplicable, and considering the source, it's even more shocking because this was a false headline generated mistakenly by NPR.
00:00:51
Speaker 1: That's NPR. That's a big mistake to make. That's a huge Samuel Alito, just given the times, give it all that we're in, been the heightened political dilemma that we find ourselves and have been in, given how big their decisions are. To hear that any Supreme Court justice is retiring Robes is some of the biggest breaking news you're gonna have.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: Oh, it's earth shattering news to hear, and it rarely happens where you hear about a Supreme Court justice either stepping down because a lot of time these are lifetime appointments, so it's not something that we even anticipate, let alone report often. So yes, for NPR to report Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Supreme Court's opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, is retiring. The Court announced Tuesday. That is what NPR posted around eleven a m.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: And so the country went crazy. Now this was you said it was yesterday, right, So Tuesday, if you know, some of the most consequential decisions of this came down on Tuesday, so robes, all eyes were on the court. Anyways, the end of their term. Transgender athletes came down, birthright citizenship came down. Those were the biggest most anticipated ones of the term.
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been waiting for months to hear what the Supreme Court would decide on those cases.
00:02:18
Speaker 3: And yes, this is the end of the.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: Term or the year for the Supreme Court. Basically, that's how they put it. So, yes, they saved the best for last. So we were all anticipating those headlines. No one was anticipating a headline saying that Alito was stepping down.
00:02:35
Speaker 1: So but because of where it came from and because of the day, it was Robes. It lent credibility and also adding to the credibility not just NPR. The reporter who broke the story is Robes, an eighty two year old woman who has covered the damn Supreme Court for almost fifty years.
00:02:54
Speaker 2: Five decades of experience. That is as veteran as it gets.
00:03:00
Speaker 3: Four reporters.
00:03:01
Speaker 2: She's like the Helen Thomas of of reporting. Basically that anyone who knows who that is with the red lipstick, that was the woman who when she said something, you knew it had to be true.
00:03:13
Speaker 1: Ada spot in the front row. Still see her sitting in the front row at the White House press room still all these years. But yes, you might not know her name, but rob this is a lady we're trying to explain. Given who it came from, the organization it came from, and the day it came Ropes, everybody scrambled. This put every newsroom almost in the country into chaos.
00:03:32
Speaker 2: Yes, Nina Totenberg is her name, and the headline went up. It didn't take long though for the retraction because it was caught pretty quickly. Was that the editor in chief? But to imagine even questioning your own reporter, But when you have a headline like that the question maybe should have come before it was published, and that is part of the debate that is certainly going on in their newsroom. Now they've discussed it. They went on their podcast and the editor in chief was saying, it's my fault, and then you had basically the reporter, Nina Totenberg saying, no, it's my fault.
00:04:04
Speaker 1: She took full responsibility, but Robes that she should have been stopped. Okay, this it should have gone out. We'll get into more. And they have a long, very detailed explanation, and we are going to read it because you do need to hear this is a very very important story. But Robes, it went up at about eleven am yesterday, and so it goes up on NPR. I don't have it in top of me. I'm not sure how quickly it came down, but within a half hour certainly it maybe even much faster than that.
00:04:29
Speaker 3: It was with I think it was within minutes.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: I don't know how many minutes it was caught and they quickly put up a retraction and.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Then but there's a big butt baby, because once MPR puts something out, everybody's running with it.
00:04:40
Speaker 2: Correct it gets reposted, it gets everywhere. Now that we're when we were doing this two person news network here, so we're going to multiple sources to look at things to make sure we have all the correct information. But so often now I'm so much more aware that so many news out let's just take from the AP. They'll take from NPR, they'll take from the New York Times, certain trusted organizations. They'll just basically copy and paste the story. Yes, and they'll take it as the word of God.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: Basically in Romes, when you hear an NPR and an AP New York Times, you don't question necessarily. We know they know what they're doing. You just you have to take them at their word. But rose, when everybody picks up on it and it goes out, NPR can retract in a few minutes. It takes a while for all those news outlets to get their attractions up. So the story roads was enormous for a little while. But the Supreme Court itself respond to this pretty quickly. Yeah, they had to say something because they saw how crazy things were getting out there.
00:05:49
Speaker 3: Uh, yes, it's fair to say.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: I believe one person said it sent shock waves through Washington, d C. So the Supreme Court said NPR story on Justice Alito is inaccurate, and any report they had about a court statement was inaccurate.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: So completely saying this is absolutely wrong, so they put that out. The retraction came from NPR saying, quote, earlier today, we erroneously published a story saying the Supreme Court Justice Semila Lito was retiring. He has not announced his retirement, and we have retracted the story. So let's get into now how robes this possibly could have happened. In short, the reporter claims she misheard something. Yeah, and you are literally scratching.
00:06:35
Speaker 2: I'm actually literally scratching my head because figuratively, and it's funny how your body just does something it's thinking. But it is a head scratcher because the way she describes it, she was in a rush to leave. She heard someone talk about She thought she heard someone say a retirement when they were talking about She said, what are they doing in there? And someone said something about a retirement? She said, I'm missed the s because they were talking about retirements. If I had heard the S, I wouldn't have assumed it was just as Alito.
00:07:07
Speaker 1: Huh, it was retirement announcements.
00:07:10
Speaker 3: Okay, sorry, there was the s.
00:07:11
Speaker 1: Anlis retirement announcement. That is the explanation that she heard retirement announcement singular and concluded that they must have been talking about Alito and published a story based on that and that alone.
00:07:34
Speaker 2: What it sounds like, it was a passing, quick, hurried, rushed conversation where yes, she could mis hear something, but we all know. And look, some people who I get journalists aren't necessarily considered the most trustworthy folks in a lot of people's minds, which is unfortunate, but I understand. But anyone who is a true journalist, who actually has been trained and is a credible journals knows the two source rules. Sometimes we need three, four or five sources to get a story published or a story on the air, because it matters. You can't just take one person's word for something. And we all know this, and certainly Totenberg knew this as well.
00:08:15
Speaker 3: Being an eighty two year old veteran reporter.
00:08:18
Speaker 2: She knows what you have to do before you publish something, and certainly something that's that serious, that significant. It baffles my mind that she didn't feel the need to double source it to confirm it, to make sure what she heard was real, because that is such a major headline.
00:08:37
Speaker 1: Okay, there is the problem. She didn't make sure what she heard was real and that she heard it correctly because in her mind, this is where I will give a little space, her source was the court itself. In her mind, she thought she heard an announcement about a retirement, and so her source was the Supreme Court because they said it. It just came out from them. Okay, fine, I can go with that. But Robes, she did not hear anybody say his name.
00:09:06
Speaker 3: That's where I'm confused.
00:09:08
Speaker 2: And so look, a lot of people have tried to read the tea leaves and think, well, maybe there is an announcement coming, and she just jumped the gun. And maybe she had already heard from several other people he was considering retiring, and so that is why she jumped to that conclusion, because it was already in the air, or it was certainly something being whispered or talked.
00:09:29
Speaker 1: About for years. We should be at in fairness, he is one that's been talked about year to year as possibly retiring. In fact, even recently they made announcement that he was interviewing law clerks, and this is something they do two three years out and they say, hey, he's obviously not retiring. This has been a matter of speculation, So I guess Robes was that in the back of her mind.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: But never once, and we'll give you her full explanation and her apology. She never once said that anyone specifically spoke his name when talking about retirements, So.
00:10:02
Speaker 1: I don't know how that happened. So Ropes, if you're the editor in chief at NPR, your reporter comes to you and say, hey, I got the scoop Alito is retiring.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: Who'd you hear it from?
00:10:11
Speaker 1: I heard them saying in the court. What did they say? Nobody else is reporting this? There are other reporters in there, like there's a how.
00:10:17
Speaker 3: Did you get the exclusive scoop?
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, if everybody else is in the you're the only one that has this, even though they may the announcement in front of everybody, it doesn't make sense. I don't get it, baby, I don't either. So that is why there is now more speculation that she must know something. Why did she just jump to that conclusion and guessing she was right or this was the right thing in what the scoop? Because that just doesn't for a veteran reporter. Hell for a rookie reporter.
00:10:44
Speaker 2: Oh, this is a fireable This is a fireable offense. If you're a rookie reporter, you would never keep your job. You would lose your job immediately.
00:10:52
Speaker 1: But you know what, there's supposed to be fail safe.
00:10:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, stop gaps where you have. That's why you have an editor in chief.
00:10:58
Speaker 2: That's why you have a certain hierarchy within a newsroom, so not one person can just go on and say they heard something or they think something's true. Not in these types of organizations. Yes, I know we have citizen journalists everywhere now and TikTok is where most people get their news. Now, we're not talking about that. This is legacy media. This is very different.
00:11:20
Speaker 1: So do you think Robes she got caught up and we always do trying to be first? Was this a rush to Absolutely?
00:11:27
Speaker 2: I absolutely think that's part of it, one hundred percent. Everyone That has always been when most people make mistakes is the rush to be first.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: So they put out a really lengthy explanation. So let's start here with the explanation that NPR put out, and they kind of did a step by step how this happened, So we'll start here. An NPR Legal affairs correspondent Nina todin Berg misheard an announcement about retirements as she was leaving the US Supreme Court on Tuesday. As a result, an NPR headline erroneously claimed that's the Preme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. The headline set atop a lengthy that recapped the conservative justice's tenure. The error was also reported on NPR's airwaves. Alito is not retiring. The story was wrong. Here's how it happened. Give them credit, and this was very important for them to do, to explain kind of behind the scenes. But op I still got questions.
00:12:18
Speaker 2: I do appreciate their transparency and full admission of wrongdoing.
00:12:23
Speaker 3: So they went on to say.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: Totenberg was reporting on a final day of the Supreme Court session on Tuesday. As she was leaving the court, Chief Justice John Roberts was announcing upcoming retirements. Totenberg wondered why everyone else wasn't leaving and asked someone outside the court. According to her interview that same day on All Things Considered, Totenberg asked a bystander what was going on? A bystander and the person replied retirement announcements, but Totenberg heard the reply in the singular announcement and assumed it was the notice that Alito was retiring.
00:13:00
Speaker 1: Baby, what the actual what that is? The part she knows something. There's gotta be more to this, robes a bystander, So it's like somebody she bumped into in the bathroom. What are we talking about? A bystander told you retirement announcements were going on, and you jumped to the conclusion. So she then didn't necessarily hear it.
00:13:27
Speaker 3: Oh she didn't hear it.
00:13:29
Speaker 2: Come she a bystander repeated what was going on in the court, and she didn't hear the s she claims. Now they do explain, and this is true.
00:13:38
Speaker 3: I understand. We do the same thing with obituaries. They say.
00:13:40
Speaker 2: NPR had the lengthy story about Alito's retirement already written, because that's what newsrooms do in anticipation of significant retirements and even deaths. Absolutely true. Can confirm that is absolutely what newsrooms do. They went on to say Totenberg spoke with both her intern who was at the court with her, and NPR executive editor Krishnadev Kalamor and told them what she heard. Kalamar surfaced the story that NPR had previously prepared for the day Alito did announce his retirement and published it. The information was also broadcast on NPR NPR's airwaves. NPR was offering special live coverage of the court's decision on the birthright citizenship case. The story was published on NPR's website at ten fifty one am Eastern Time.
00:14:27
Speaker 3: And it was live for about five minutes. Okay, that's how long it was.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: It was up for longer periods on some member station websites. It was taken down and replaced with an editor's note by ten fifty seven am. The error was corrected on the broadcast at eleven o seven am. So look within it looks like fifteen minutes. Everything was corrected, but the cat was out of the bag and the wrong cat was out of the wrong bag.
00:14:55
Speaker 1: Well, I still and it is just because, yes, mistakes are made. Stakes at this level are rarely made. They are rare. You have some big ones every now yet, but they are rarely made. The explanation robes, you do get caught up. You're competitive, you're in a rush. If you have the scoop that Dan that Justice Alito is retiring. That is a very big story. That is a career making story. She's older, of course, and been around. But Robes, that is a significant story. You wanted to get the scoop. Why she would think though she heard it from a bystander, surely other people were gonna have it, and she was in a rush to beat them. Maybe I can imagine Robes when they use the word. A bystander told me that's tough. A bystander told me that retirement announcements were happening, and I heard the bystander say retirement announcement only, so it must be Alito. Let's publish it. Robes, that is a fireable if I'm not saying she should be fire But I don't understand that.
00:15:58
Speaker 2: I don't either, And then I don't understand. And look, she must have enough clout, enough credibility. She does obviously that the editor didn't question her. He didn't say who did you get this from? Exactly, because I'm not seeing this anywhere else. No one else is reporting that. That would be if you were anyone, maybe perhaps within the newsroom who was younger or a little less experienced, those questions might have been asked. I'm guessing they weren't because of who she was.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: That's fair, But rogues if she comes back and she says her source is the Supreme Court that in her mind, by talking to a bystander who heard Justice Alito say something was good enough that they.
00:16:33
Speaker 3: Must have heard.
00:16:34
Speaker 2: These rumors were there and they were ready to report it, and all she needed was one little spark and she said, we got it.
00:16:43
Speaker 3: That had to be what it was.
00:16:44
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a tough one, and she apologized. She's going out of her way to say, this is on me. It's the most embarrassing thing, the worst mistake I've ever made in my career. And this is a this is a tough one. But on the day where so many eyes were on the Supreme Court, it was like the worst day possible.
00:17:00
Speaker 3: It was tough.
00:17:01
Speaker 2: And she goes into just how tough it was. When we come back, we will actually read to you her official apology that she wrote to Justice Samuel Alito. And welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking about a shocking mistake made by a veteran NPR reporter who told the world that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had retired on the last day while the Supreme Court was in session handing out all these major, major decisions and rulings. It certainly sent shockwaves through DC for those ten to fifteen minutes. It was up and around, and they eventually retracted it, and she did apologize. Not just NPR apologizing to its readers and apologizing for the gaff, but she actually personally sent a letter to Justice Alito.
00:18:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she read it. And I assume she has relationships with all of these folks. She's covered with the Supreme Court that long. But she says she sent it to him. She was on what mprs, what radio.
00:18:15
Speaker 2: Shows, She did a podcast, their podcast All Things Considered there. It is, of course, so a very famous one indeed, And so yes, this was her apology to Alito. Dear Justice Alito, there are no words to adequately apologize for today's error in reporting your retirement.
00:18:32
Speaker 3: It was entirely my fault.
00:18:34
Speaker 2: I rushed out of the courtroom after the opinion announcements, and when I realized that the usual rush, the usual rush of folks after a few minutes, had not happened, I asked somebody, what was going on inside, to which the answer was retirement announcements. I didn't hear the s on announcements, and I assumed something no reporter should ever do, that you were retiring.
00:18:59
Speaker 1: Suppose she heard the s.
00:19:02
Speaker 2: Would that mean that suddenly she didn't think Alito was a part of it. It's really confusing. Her explanation doesn't fully explain. I don't feel like in its entirety how she leapt to that conflinition.
00:19:15
Speaker 1: She is one that deserves the benefit of the doubt. She's been around enough. But it just from our vantage point, from the look from experience, just it's confused. The explanation, it's never the crime, it's a cover up. And I was saying there's a cover up. But the explanation, Okay, if I heard announcements, I never would have assumed Alito was a part of that announcement.
00:19:38
Speaker 3: Well.
00:19:38
Speaker 2: No, And also just to have to say she knows this is painful as a reporter to have to explain. I asked somebody what was going on inside? Her source was somebody that is tough. Her source, babe, according to her, was somebody what that doesn't happen, It shouldn't happen, And she knows that, and she is paying the price. I did hear her on the All Things Considered podcast. They asked her if she had heard back from Aledo as of that recording.
00:20:11
Speaker 3: She had not, And he hasn't made any public statements.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: I haven't seen any there.
00:20:15
Speaker 2: Obviously, the justices are famously exceptionally private, so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to never hear a comment from him.
00:20:24
Speaker 1: You know, I know, I would. You know, I would love if he sent her some love. I would too, that would be cool. I don't know much about his person well, we don't know much about any of their personalities. We don't have from him like that except Kazanjie Brown Jackson has been on on Broadway.
00:20:38
Speaker 3: And she's doing She's she's the outlier.
00:20:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I enjoy it. Knock yourself out your spring Court justice, use that thing. But I just that doesn't make any sense. It's an embarrassing mistake. And maybe she's trying to lessen the embarrassment of it because sitting where she is rope, that she had anybody explaining this to her, with all the experience she had.
00:20:59
Speaker 3: She'd have follow questions say what the hell are you? She would have follow ups.
00:21:02
Speaker 1: It makes no sense. This reminds I believe it was Pamela Brown was. I still was seeing it at the time. You remember the Affordable Care Act, Yes, the big decision twenty twelve. This is the other one. I remember Supreme Court decision that everybody was in such a rush. News organizations changed their policies after this twenty twelve Affordable Care Act. President Obama. Supreme Court was making a decision about the Affordable Care Act, and CNN in particular went on and said that the Affordable Care Act had been struck down, had been struck down. That was one hundred percent wrong, and it was just the rush to be first. The rush to be first led them to be wrong. Anaroobes, I remember that case so so well, and news organizations had to back off and slow down, especially with Supreme Court decisions. Just read through the cucke. It's more important to be right than it is to be first.
00:21:55
Speaker 3: And you learned that in journalism one on one.
00:21:57
Speaker 2: And I know they tell you that, But when competition there you go, is all around you, and you've got a news director or you've got an editor on your butt to be exceptional, to get things first, to beat the competition. All those rules and all that stuff you learn in j school suddenly doesn't seem as important as it does to impress or at least satisfy your boss.
00:22:25
Speaker 1: Because that editor robes that that person, the boss is concerned that somebody flicking through the channels is going to pass by another channel and it says breaking news, Alito is retiring, and you don't have it up on your screen. The worst, they're going to keep watching that other channel. So that's what's in their minds. So we got to be first, got We certainly can't be behind. We can't be last. It just happens. And give this look. This woman's been doing this a long time. All respect to her. A mistake was made. She's a human being, and she made a bad, bad mistake.
00:22:58
Speaker 2: And she apologized and she owned it. She blamed no one else but herself.
00:23:02
Speaker 1: I still got questions, but we always appreciate your folks spending some time with us. Justice Thomas is not retiring either. John Roberts is hanging around for a little while. Who are they? Who else are they talking about possibly retiring?
00:23:17
Speaker 3: Not Corset Show, I haven't there's another one.
00:23:20
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas Thomas. I've certainly heard Alito obviously.
00:23:23
Speaker 1: Okay, you're gonna have to take that robe out off of his cold dead body. Chirs Thomas ain't going nowhere.
00:23:29
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
00:23:30
Speaker 1: He is going to ride at that.
00:23:32
Speaker 3: President Trump is grateful.
00:23:35
Speaker 1: No what a story, but folks, we appreciate. It's always spending a little time without Siam.
00:23:39
Speaker 2: T J.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: Holmes on the half of my dear Amy Robok talk to