NPR Announces, and Retracts, Alito Retirement Story

There needs to be more of an explanation what happened.

With the birthright citizenship opinion handed down, I thought we were done for the term. But at 10:51 ET, NPR posts a story with Nina Totenberg's byline: "Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, retires."

The story had no actual details about the retirement, but included a lengthy profile of Justice Alito. It seems this piece was pre-written just in case of a retirement.

About 15 minutes later, the story was taken down. (I preserved a PDF.) There is now an Editors Note;

Editors Note: Earlier today we erroneously published a story saying that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. He has not announced his retirement and we have retracted the story.

Why was it published? Did someone make a mistake an erroneously click "submit." Or did Nina Totenberg green-light the story? I think NPR should provide an explanation of what happened here. These sorts of announcements can move markets and have a huge impact before they are corrected.

This mess-up brings to mind the faulty reporting about NFIB v. Sebelius in 2012.

Update: Mediaite has more details on the retraction.

Comments

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd assume they have retirement stories on file for all the Justices, but how does this happen? Publishing shortcuts on somebody's desktop?

[ah....Clem]

Yep. Somebody clicked the wrong button. I doubt there's much more to this story than that.

[Estragon]

I can think of at least one person who is eager for Sammy to retire:

“… when you are free of this nonsense, I’m putting it up and I’m gonna send them a message every day. Maybe every week I’ll be changing the flags.”

[Stuart]

One can dream.

[Roger S]

Yes, wishful thinking by NPR radio.

[santamonica811]

No liberal wants Alito to retire in 2026, for the super-obvious reason that Trump would just nominate an equally far-right whore, but 2-3 decades younger.*

*Of course liberals would love a retirement if/when Dems take control of the Senate by at least 2 person majority. (Must be 2+, b/c we all know Sen. Fetterman would happily vote to confirm anyone Trump nominates.)

[Darwinnie]

And in other news ……

[Stubbeeze]

Oh, he's retiring. He's just not going to jump when Nina Totenberg says "jump."

She's sourcing from her new source, I'm not sure which one it is, but I assume KBJ since the source is newish.

Could be weeks, though.

[Trebor1415]

It was a mistake. Similar to mistyping “NPR” as “NRP” in your headline.

News agencies always have prewritten stories for the death or retirement of key figures. Most likely someone was editing that article and went to save it and accidentally posted it instead. I’ve done similar before on blogs. (But nothing with this consequence)

[LawTalkingGuy]

NRP?

[ah....Clem]

Like obituaries, retirement articles are written in advance, because there's no point in waiting until the last minute to write about something that will happen eventually. (OK, sometimes people die in office so you use the pre-written obit instead of the retirement story, which is almost the same article anyway)

Somebody at NPR clicked the wrong thing and it went live. Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.

[Stubbeeze]

True, but the fact that retirement stories are pre-written doesn't mean that he's not retiring.

[Brett Bellmore]

Likewise, the fact that they're pre-written doesn't mean that they should have them one mouse click away from being published, either.

[Stubbeeze]

We'll obviously know in a few weeks. But I read the tea leaves, including Alito's reduced caseload, Sotomayor's lack of deference, etc. to mean he's been a short-timer all term. I wonder the status of his law clerk hiring, and what he has told them.

[David Nieporent]

I wonder the status of his law clerk hiring, and what he has told them.

If he hadn't been hiring, I'd think we'd have heard about that.

[Stubbeeze]

Even the retired justices get clerks though, right? He may have hired them and clued them in (or not). They usually hire well ahead of July. I'm searching for any online scuttlebutt...