An NPR spokeswoman said that it stands behind fact-free middle school mean-girl reporting

Middle School Mean-Girl behavior everywhere.  Yesterday I heard Nina Totenberg on NPR broadcast a report which was an unsourced trafficking in Supreme Court gossip.  The basic claims were that the justices don't get along with one another, that the conservative justices were dismissive of the liberal justices and that Gorsuch in particular was callously disregarding Sotomayor's health concerns.  

Given Totenberg's mixed history as a reporter, her ideological biases, and the fact that none of the claims were supported on the record, I just dismissed it as mainstream media noise.  Or middle school mean-girl nattering seeking to stir up trouble.

I saw a number of criticisms of the reporting over the past twenty-four hours mostly from conservative and libertarian sources.  

Now I see something which is more substantive.  From Roberts, Sotomayor and Gorsuch Address Reports of Conflicts Over Masks by Adam Liptak.  

In an unusual joint statement on Wednesday, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil M. Gorsuch sought to rebut reports that Justice Gorsuch’s refusal to wear a mask at Supreme Court arguments has created tensions between them.

“Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us,” the statement said. “It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends.”

A few hours later, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued his own statement. “I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other justice to wear a mask on the bench,” he said.

[snip]

The justices’ statements seemed to be primarily directed at a report by Nina Totenberg of NPR on Tuesday attributed to “court sources.” In it, Ms. Totenberg said that Justice Sotomayor “did not feel safe in close proximity to people who were unmasked.”

“Chief Justice John Roberts, understanding that, in some form asked the other justices to mask up,” the report said. 

 

I guess it is some mark of distinction to be an NPR icon and have your reporting rebutted by a bi-partisan mix of Supreme Court justices.  Not a good distinction, but still.

NPR, consistent with its new modus operandi of ideological and fact-free reporting issued a statement.

An NPR spokeswoman said that it “stands behind Nina Totenberg’s reporting.”

UPDATE:  A Drew Holden thread on the faster-than-omicron spread of mean-girl Totenberg gossip across all the mainstream media.  One unsourced report was too savory for all the rest of mainstream media to resist.  Lot's of broadcasting and no verifying.  Is "Believe and don't verify" a journalistic axiom?