‘I am so, so sorry’: NPR reporter explains SCOTUS retirement error
‘I am so, so sorry’: NPR Reporter Explains SCOTUS Retirement Error
I am so so sorry - NPR’s Supreme Court correspondent, Nina Totenberg, admitted to a “beginner’s error” during a Tuesday morning report, which mistakenly stated that Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. The misreporting caused a brief ripple across newsrooms as colleagues rushed to verify the claim. A court representative swiftly disputed the information, prompting Totenberg to address the mistake on the same day’s All Things Considered program.
Apology and Misunderstanding
During the broadcast, Totenberg shared her apology, which she had sent to Justice Alito. While the message conveyed regret, it didn’t fully clarify why the report was published without further checks. The incident also reignited speculation about Alito’s potential retirement, a topic that had been quietly debated among legal observers for some time.
“I scared everybody half to death for about five minutes,” Totenberg said. “It’s entirely on me. It’s not anybody else’s fault.”
The apology detailed her confusion: “Dear Justice Alito, there are no words to adequately apologize for today’s error in reporting your retirement. It was entirely my fault. I rushed out of the courtroom after the opinion announcements, and when I realized the usual crowd hadn’t gathered, I asked someone what was happening 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.”
Later in the segment, Totenberg noted she had left the courtroom to join NPR’s live coverage of the court’s rulings. She admitted she should have stayed to fully grasp the announcements. “It was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism,” she wrote to Alito. “I could go on, but I don’t know what else to say except that I am so, so sorry.”
As of Tuesday, Totenberg had not received a response from Alito. According to NPR’s public editor, Kelly McBride, Totenberg had already prepared a complete story about Alito’s retirement. When she called NPR executive editor Krishnadev Calamur with the news, the editor published it immediately, relying on her longstanding access to court information.
News organizations often have pre-written stories ready for anticipated announcements, but the incident raised questions about Totenberg’s insider knowledge. She did not clarify this during her apology. NPR’s editor-in-chief, Thomas Evans, acknowledged the error, saying, “We do have systems in place” to prevent such mistakes. “We 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,” Evans added.
McBride’s version of the story, published on NPR’s website, slightly diverged. She wrote that as Totenberg exited the court, Chief Justice John Roberts was announcing upcoming retirements. Totenberg misheard Roberts’ statement, according to McBride. The public editor also highlighted Totenberg’s decades-long experience covering the court as a contributing factor to the error. Calamur told McBride, “She’s in the room. It’s like when we report opinions. I’m not waiting to see what the Times is reporting. It’s when Nina says, ‘here’s what happened,’ and we do it. That’s the trust you build up.”