Does NPR’s Nina Totenberg have advanced knowledge that Justice Samuel Alito is about to retire?NPR reporter Nina Totenberg on Tuesday published an article claiming Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring.Totenberg claimed that the Supreme Court made the announcement that Alito was retiring.Nina Totenberg wrote: “Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Supreme Court’s opinion reversing Roe v. Wade is retiring, the court announced on Tuesday.”However, 10 minutes later, the NPR article was scrubbed and left with an editor’s note.The original article is archived here.“This story has been taken down. It was published in error,” the note read.NPR staff published a separate article claiming the Alito article was “erroneously published.”NPR said that Totenberg already had a draft article on Alito’s retirement ready in advance of the announcement.The outlet claimed that Totenberg assumed that Alito was retiring after she heard a bystander say that Chief Justice Roberts made a retirement announcement. “Totenberg was reporting on the final day of the Supreme Court session on Tuesday. As she was leaving the court, Chief Justice John Roberts was announcing upcoming retirements. Totenberg wondered why everyone else wasn’t leaving and asked someone outside the court. According to her interview that same day on All Things Considered, Totenberg asked a bystander what was going on, and the person replied “retirement announcements.” But Totenberg heard the reply in the singular, “announcement, ” and assumed it was the notice that Alito was retiring,’ NPR reported.Nina Totenberg revealed on “All Things Considered” that she made a “rookie mistake.”“I scared everybody half to death for about five minutes,” Totenberg said on the show. “It’s entirely on me. It’s not anybody else’s fault.”Totenberg read the text of her apology to Alito on Tuesday’s show:“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 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.”NPR claimed that Nina Totenberg’s status as one of the most experienced reporters covering the Supreme Court contributed to the error.“Totenberg is one of the most experienced reporters covering the Supreme Court. She’s done so for NPR since 1975. Her status contributed to the error,” NPR said.“She’s the preeminent Supreme Court reporter in the courtroom,” NPR Executive Editor Krishnadev Calamur said. “So I’m assuming that’s what she heard. … She’s in the room. It’s like when we report opinions. I’m not waiting to see what the Times is reporting. It’s when Nina says, here’s what happened, and we do it. That’s the trust you build up.”The post NPR’s Nina Totenberg Reveals Why She Posted a Story Claiming Alito Was Retiring – Then Quickly Retracted appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.