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.
