NPR on Tuesday retracted an article that said Samuel Alito, an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, had retired.
The article, written by the veteran Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg, said Justice Alito had announced his retirement. He has made no such announcement about his role, and a Supreme Court spokesman on Tuesday called NPR’s article “inaccurate.”
By midmorning Tuesday, the article had been replaced with a brief editor’s 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.”
Thomas Evans, NPR’s editor in chief, said in a statement that the article had been published because of a “misunderstanding.”
“As soon as the error was realized, the story was retracted and removed from NPR’s website and an on-air correction was broadcast,” he said.
Mrs. Totenberg, 82, who has been covering the Supreme Court for more than 40 years, took responsibility for the mistake on air on Tuesday evening. “There’s no getting me off the hook,” she said. Mr. Evans said it was an institutional mistake. “This is something we should learn from,” he said.
Earlier in the day, NPR’s public editor published a detailed account of the circumstances that led to the error. The public radio network published its story after Mrs. Totenberg misheard remarks from Chief Justice John G. Roberts and accidentally conveyed the incorrect information to Krishnadev Calamur, NPR’s executive editor. Mr. Calamur surfaced the article, which Mrs. Totenberg had written in advance to prepare for the event of Justice Alito’s retirement, and published it.
When Mrs. Totenberg realized no one else was reporting the news, she called Mr. Calamur to tell him it was incorrect, according to NPR.
The article went through an extra layer of editing, known at NPR as “the backstop,” according to two people familiar with the process. NPR added that layer in 2024 as a final line of defense against errors. But because the article cited an announcement, rather than confidential sources, the network did not take additional steps to verify the accuracy of the information, the people said.
NPR’s error came on a frenzied day at the Supreme Court, which released a spate of major decisions. Media outlets swarmed to cover the rulings, including a rejection of President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, a decision allowing states to bar transgender athletes from girls’ sports and another lifting spending limits on political parties.
Though NPR issued its retraction quickly, the article was nonetheless published on other public radio member sites that syndicate the network’s coverage. The retraction on NPR’s site caused a chain reaction across the country, causing those stations to remove the article and issue their own retractions.
NPR’s reporting was quickly cited elsewhere in the news media. Vox pulled a story originally titled “Justice Alito does one last favor for the Republican Party,” citing “inaccurate reporting from another outlet.” Bloomberg flashed the news to its terminal subscribers, attributing it to NPR, then sent more flashes within minutes flagging the Supreme Court’s denial and NPR’s retraction.
The article, which was more than 1,000 words, was a retrospective on Justice Alito’s career. It focused on his majority opinion for the 2022 case that overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion-rights case. Calling Justice Alito “a consequential conservative,” the article said he had played a key role on the court on issues including religious and voting rights.
Mrs. Totenberg has drawn attention in the past because of her close ties to justices, including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Mrs. Totenberg published a book about their friendship in 2022.
NPR’s public editor concluded after its publication that the network should consider changing Mrs. Totenberg’s title to “legal commentator” from “legal affairs correspondent.” In response, NPR’s top editorial and business leaders issued statements defending her. She said she had answered questions about her relationship with Justice Ginsburg in her book.
Abbie VanSickle contributed reporting.
