The Supreme Court handed down a flurry of major decisions on Tuesday, but one of the day's biggest headlines turned out to be completely wrong. NPR briefly reported that Justice Samuel Alito was retiring, a claim that quickly spread before the outlet retracted it and acknowledged the story was false.
As previously reported, NPR Editor-in-Chief Thomas Evans attributed the incident to a "misunderstanding" and said longtime Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg would personally explain what happened during an episode of All Things Considered. Evans also noted that Totenberg had contacted Justice Alito to apologize.
Totenberg's explanation has now been released, and it centers on what she described as a simple but consequential misunderstanding inside the Supreme Court.
Nina Totenberg just spoke on "All Things Considered" and said her mistaken report about Alito retiring was a "rookie mistake."
"It's entirely on me. It's not anybody else's fault," she said.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 30, 2026
According to Totenberg, she hurried out of the courtroom after the opinions were announced. When she noticed that the usual crowd had not yet emerged, she asked someone what was happening inside. She said the response she heard was "retirement announcements." Believing she had heard "retirement announcement," she assumed Justice Alito was stepping down and reported it without confirming the information.
In the apology she sent to Alito, Totenberg wrote:
This is, by the way, the second time Totenberg made major SCOTUS news because her reporting was confused and not adequately overseen: a story from her rocketed around the Internet during COVID that Gorsuch ignored a Roberts request to wear a mask on the bench, forcing Sotomayor…
— Patrick Brennan (@ptbrennan11) June 30, 2026
"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 that the usual rush of folks after a few minutes had not happened, I asked somebody what was going on 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. It was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism. I could go on, but I don't know what else to say, except that I am so, so sorry."
The explanation has raised almost as many questions as the original mistake. Critics have pointed out that the story was published without the kind of verification normally expected for news involving a sitting Supreme Court justice. Retirement announcements from the nation's highest court are among the most consequential developments in American government, making the lack of additional confirmation particularly notable.
The incident has also prompted renewed attention to an earlier reporting controversy involving Totenberg during the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, she reported that Justice Neil Gorsuch had declined a request from Chief Justice John Roberts to wear a mask on the bench, forcing Justice Sonia Sotomayor to participate remotely. Roberts publicly disputed the account, and Totenberg later acknowledged that she did not have direct knowledge of the alleged request itself.
Spoke with NPR's Nina Totenberg about the birthright citizenship decision. The longtime SCOTUS reporter also cleared up what happened today with the story about Justice Alito retiring that was quickly retracted. @livenowfox pic.twitter.com/mSeRKVpYez
— Andy Mac (@ItsAndyMac_) June 30, 2026
NPR's public editor, Kelly McBride, defended the organization's reliance on Totenberg's reporting by pointing to her decades of experience covering the Supreme Court since joining the network in 1975. However, neither McBride nor Totenberg addressed why the assumption specifically centered on Alito or why additional reporting safeguards were not employed before such a significant claim was published.