{"id":3981,"date":"2026-07-01T04:08:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T04:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=3981"},"modified":"2026-07-01T04:08:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T04:08:31","slug":"npr-retracts-article-incorrectly-reporting-justice-alitos-retirement-citing-misunderstanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=3981","title":{"rendered":"NPR retracts article incorrectly reporting Justice Alito\u2019s retirement, citing \u2018misunderstanding\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div>\n<p><span>National Public Radio on Tuesday reported, then quickly retracted, that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring \u2014 a mistake by its veteran court reporter that prompted an apology from the news organization\u2019s executive editor and an entire column by its public editor explaining what happened and how.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=3979\">Revolt by Republicans paralyzes House of Representatives<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>NPR attributed the error by reporter Nina Totenberg, on the final day of the court\u2019s session, to a misunderstanding of a statement by Chief Justice John Roberts that led to previously prepared copy being posted live. The erroneous news was also broadcast on NPR. It was live on the organization\u2019s website for about five minutes, though some member stations had it up longer, NPR said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>An editor\u2019s note posted by some NPR affiliates said: \u201cEarlier today, we erroneously published a story saying that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. Neither Alito nor the court\u2019s public information office has announced his retirement, and we have retracted the story.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><span>Get Starting Point<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.<\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><label>Enter Email<\/label><\/p>\n<div><button>Sign Up<\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>Later, a longer statement from Editor-in-Chief Tommy Evans said NPR regretted the error and the confusion it may have caused. \u201cDue to a misunderstanding, NPR\u2019s Supreme Court and Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg incorrectly reported that Justice Samuel Alito had retired. Neither Justice Alito nor the Supreme Court Public Information Office has announced his retirement,\u201d Evans said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cAs soon as the error was realized, the story was retracted and removed from NPR\u2019s website and an on-air correction was broadcast. We regret the error and any confusion this may have caused,\u201d Evans said.<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h2>Breaking down the error<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>Interviewed later on NPR\u2019s \u201cAll Things Considered,\u201d Totenberg explained how what she called \u201cthe worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism\u201d came about.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Reading aloud from a letter of apology she\u2019d sent to Alito, Totenberg said she\u2019d rushed out of the courtroom early after announcements of court opinions, and when she realized that others had not rushed out, she asked what was happening and was told \u201cretirement announcements.\u201d She then mistakenly assumed it was Alito who was retiring.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThis was a rookie mistake,\u201d Totenberg noted in the interview.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI scared everybody half to death for about five minutes, and it\u2019s entirely on me,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Evans, also appearing on \u201cAll Things Considered,\u201d said that he too felt responsibility, and noted that NPR would be looking at newsroom systems to determine \u201cwhere we could do better and be better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=3977\">Nursing gains \u2018professional\u2019 label for student loans after judge\u2019s ruling, but theology now dropped<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>The error was also detailed in a column by NPR\u2019s public editor, Kelly McBride, who explained how when Totenberg misheard the announcement, the organization posted some previously written \u201cpreparedness\u201d \u2014 copy that news organizations often prepare in advance of major expected events and notable deaths.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cAlito is not retiring. The story was wrong,\u201d McBride said in her column. \u201cTotenberg misheard Roberts\u2019 statement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>McBride continued: \u201cTotenberg spoke with both her intern, who was at the court with her, and NPR Executive Editor Krishnadev Calamur and told them what she heard. 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\u2019s airwaves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h2>Retirements were mentioned, though<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>On a busy day for the court, Roberts had announced the retirement of several court employees, as he customarily does after the court\u2019s final opinions are out. But Alito\u2019s name was not among them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Speculation had swirled about the justice\u2019s future plans earlier this year, but Fox News and CBS reported this spring that he planned to remain on the bench.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Alito has been on the court since 2006, when he replaced Justice Sandra Day O\u2019Connor. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>McBride, in her column, said she didn\u2019t expect the mistake to endure in the public consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cFor most news consumers, the error is a blip, something that flashed across their feed or they heard on their radio,\u201d she wrote. \u201cIt was corrected quickly and will not have lasting consequences.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=3975\">Supreme Court allows states to bar transgender athletes from girls\u2019 sports<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The article was written by NPR\u2019s veteran Supreme Court reporter, Nina Totenberg, who planned to address the issue on air later in the day, the news organization said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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