\n NPR\u2019s eminent Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg says she made a \u201crookie mistake\u201d on Tuesday morning, and that\u2019s why she reported that Justice Samuel Alito was retiring.\n <\/p>\n
\n Totenberg\u2019s story sent other newsrooms scrambling to confirm, leading a court spokesperson to deny the reporting.\n <\/p>\n
\n Totenberg discussed the matter on \u201cAll Things Considered\u201d Tuesday afternoon and read the text of the apology she sent to Alito.\n <\/p>\n
\n The apology didn\u2019t fully explain why NPR published the report without additional confirmation, however.\n <\/p>\n
\n The embarrassing episode also amplified questions about whether, in fact, Alito is contemplating retirement, a possibility some court watchers had already been discussing.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI scared everybody half to death for about five minutes,\u201d Totenberg said on the radio. \u201cIt\u2019s entirely on me. It\u2019s not anybody else\u2019s fault.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Then she read the apology: \u201cDear Justice Alito, there are no words to adequately apologize for today\u2019s error in reporting your retirement. It was entirely my fault. I rushed out of the courtroom after the opinion announcements, and when I realized that the usual rush of folks after a few minutes had not happened, I asked somebody was going on inside, to which the answer was, \u2018retirement announcements.\u2019 I didn\u2019t hear the \u2018s\u2019 on \u2018announcements,\u2019 and I assumed something no reporter should ever do, that you were retiring.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Later in the segment, Totenberg indicated that she hurried out of the courtroom to join NPR\u2019s special live coverage of the court\u2019s rulings. She said she should have stayed at the court to hear the substance of what was being announced.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism,\u201d she wrote to Alito. \u201cI could go on, but I don\u2019t know what else to say except that I am so, so sorry.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Totenberg said she hasn\u2019t heard back from the justice.\n <\/p>\n
\n Totenberg had a complete story ready to go about Alito\u2019s retirement, so when she called NPR executive editor Krishnadev Calamur with the apparent news, Calamur went ahead and published it, according to the public radio organization\u2019s public editor, Kelly McBride.\n <\/p>\n
\n News outlets frequently have so-called \u201cprewrites\u201d ready in advance of expected announcements.\n <\/p>\n
\n But Tuesday\u2019s incident sparked speculation that Totenberg, who has been well-sourced at the court for decades, might have had some advance knowledge that Alito was about to retire.\n <\/p>\n
\n Totenberg did not address that during Tuesday\u2019s mea culpa.\n <\/p>\n
\n Thomas Evans, NPR\u2019s editor-in-chief, said on air that \u201cwe do have systems in place\u201d to avoid mistakes like Tuesday\u2019s.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe are trying to be a nimble news organization during breaking news and still be correct at all times, and this is something we should learn from,\u201d Evans said.\n <\/p>\n
\n McBride\u2019s account of what Totenberg misheard, published on NPR\u2019s website, is slightly different.\n <\/p>\n
\n McBride wrote that \u201cas she was leaving the court, Chief Justice John Roberts was announcing upcoming retirements. Totenberg misheard Roberts\u2019 statement.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n McBride observed that Totenberg\u2019s status as a reporter who has been covering the Supreme Court since 1975 \u201ccontributed to the error.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Calamur told McBride, \u201cShe\u2019s in the room. It\u2019s like when we report opinions. I\u2019m not waiting to see what the Times is reporting. It\u2019s when Nina says, \u2018here\u2019s what happened,\u2019 and we do it. That\u2019s the trust you build up.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NPR\u2019s eminent Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg says she made a \u201crookie mistake\u201d on Tuesday morning, and that\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,133,131,132],"class_list":["post-772618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}