NPR “reporter” Nina Totenberg reported Tuesday the retirement of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a piece the outlet later admitted was false.
The story was soon taken down and replaced with an editor’s note saying it had been “published in error.”
Totenberg’s fake article was headlined “Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, retires.”
The archived version of the NPR homepage shows that the article held a top featured spot for the brief period it was live, according to Mediaite.
“Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Supreme Court’s opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, is retiring, the court announced Tuesday,” the article began, noting that the justice’s “name is indelibly linked with the court’s opinion overturning a half century’s worth of decisions declaring that women have a right to abortion.”
“Shortly after the article was published, a moderator in the live chat at SCOTUSblog that had been discussing the morning’s opinions noted that the court’s public information officer ‘just emphasized that the court has not made any announcement to that effect,’” said Mediaite’s Sarah Rumpf.
Totenberg, 82, has a questionable history of cozy relationships with top D.C. Democrat officials and with some of the court’s justices, most notably Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
A number of Washington reporters raised questions of conflict of interest when Ginsburg officiated over Totenberg’s wedding in 2000.
Totenberg pooh-poohed the complaints, saying her relationship with Ginsburg predated the latter’s years on the court.
After Ginsburg died in 2020, Totenberg disclosed additional details of the 48-year-long friendship she had with her, according to Wiki.
The deeply personal nature of their friendship was not widely known to NPR audiences until Totenberg released the obituary.
Subsequently, Totenberg received criticism for not disclosing the friendship.
A top NPR editor called Totenberg’s undisclosed friendship with Ginsburg a conflict of interest (given Totenberg’s role as Legal Affairs correspondent) that implies “one set of standards for senior, elite journalists, and another set of standards for the rest of the staff.”
Likewise, Totenberg revealed a long friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia after he died in 2016, and she has persistently worked to develop tight friendships with other justices and elite lawyers, Wiki says.
Four years ago NPR management required Totenberg to correct a story claiming the chief justice asked his colleagues to wear masks during the COVID pandemic.
In 1972, Totenberg was fired from her position at the National Observer newspaper for plagiarism.
Totenberg’s father, Polish-American virtuoso violinist Roman Totenberg, spent 37 summers teaching and performing at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School in Blue Hill, Maine
I thought Totenberg was a tattoo on Graham Platner’s chest …..LOL