Nina Totenberg, American Legal Affairs correspondent for NPR, apologized on Tuesday after she falsely reported that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is retiring.
Totenberg issued her apology on NPR’s All Things Considered podcast, chalking her false report down to a “rookie mistake.”
“It’s entirely on me. It’s not anybody else’s fault,” she said.
Totenberg then read the text apology that she personally sent to Justice Alito:
Dear Justice Alito, there are no words to adequately apologize for today’s error in reporting your retirement,” she said. “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, ‘retirement announcements.’
“I didn’t hear the ‘s’ on ‘announcements,’ and I assumed something no reporter should ever do, that you were retiring. It was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism. I could go on, but I don’t know what else to say, except that I am so, so sorry,” she added.
NPR had a news report about Alito’s retirement already written by the time Totenberg informed the newsroom, which many publications keep on hand for immediate publication in case of sudden retirement or possible death.
“Totenberg spoke with both her intern, who was at the court with her, and NPR Executive Editor Krishnadev Calamur and told them what she heard,” per NPR. “Calamur 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’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 10:51 a.m. ET and it was live for about five minutes. It was up for longer periods on some member station websites. It was taken down and replaced with an editor’s note by 10:57 a.m. The error was corrected on the broadcast at 11:07 a.m. ET,” it added.
