Yeah, About that NPR Report That Justice Roberts Asked The Justices To Mask Up…(UPDATE ADDED)
[guest post by Dana]
Yesterday, a report at NPR claimed that, on behalf of Justice Sotomayor who is a diabetic, Chief Justice Roberts in some form asked the other justices to mask up while on the bench:
It was pretty jarring earlier this month when the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court took the bench for the first time since the omicron surge over the holidays. All were now wearing masks. All, that is, except Justice Neil Gorsuch. What’s more, Justice Sonia Sotomayor was not there at all, choosing instead to participate through a microphone setup in her chambers.
Sotomayor has diabetes, a condition that puts her at high risk for serious illness, or even death, from COVID-19. She has been the only justice to wear a mask on the bench since last fall when, amid a marked decline in COVID-19 cases, the justices resumed in-person arguments for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.
Now, though, the situation had changed with the omicron surge, and according to court sources, 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.
They all did. Except Gorsuch, who, as it happens, sits next to Sotomayor on the bench. His continued refusal since then has also meant that Sotomayor has not attended the justices’ weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone.
[Ed. I read *this yesterday and it struck me as being awkwardly worded and wondered why an experienced journalist would do this. My guess then was that it might somehow allow her wiggle room if the story ended up not being entirely accurate.]
NPR’s veteran legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg authored the story:
Gorsuch refuses to mask up to protect Sotomayor; Alito still thinks he should have been CJ; the libs are beside themselves; & the conservative fissures are showing amid competition to succeed Scalia. Altogether, not a happy group at #SCOTUS. https://t.co/cx1ToTbHuQ
— Nina Totenberg (@NinaTotenberg) January 18, 2022
You can find loads of comments throughout the internet excoriating Gorsuch for refusing to heed Chief Roberts’ request. Today, Gorsuch and Sotomayor released a joint statement on the kerfuffle. Note that in the NPR report, Totenberg did not claim that Sotomayor asked Gorsuch to mask up, despite them responding as if she had. This from C-Span’s Nicole Ninh:
JUST IN #SCOTUS Statement from Justices Sotomayor & Gorsuch on masks. pic.twitter.com/lAKJoEqRlW
— Nicole Ninh (@nicninh) January 19, 2022
But Totenberg did claim that Chief Justice Roberts asked the justices to mask up while on the bench. And via Nicole Ninh, we now know that what Totenberg claimed did not happen:
JUST IN The Chief Justice Roberts chimes in on masks. Passed along from the #SCOTUS public information office. pic.twitter.com/ijqXvvWxqb
— Nicole Ninh (@nicninh) January 19, 2022
Anyway, in reading the full NPR report, the alleged mask kerfuffle appears to have been a convenient launchpad for Totenberg to lament and lambast the conservative majority of the court.
Additionally, the more I read, it’s clear that Totenberg wasn’t remotely interested in knowing the actual truth of the matter, and instead preferred to run with her false claim:
Dear @NinaTotenberg:
You know your reporting is false.
The Supreme Court press office told you this.
And you didn’t even bother to confirm with them before your false reporting.
Do you have the integrity to retract your false reporting? (No.)https://t.co/eTPY3csABb
— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) January 19, 2022
As of the writing of this post, no retraction has been made by NPR and/or Totenberg. Instead, NPR says that it stands behind Nina Totenberg’s reporting.
UPDATE: NPR stands by its reporting:
On Tuesday, NPR reported that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a longtime diabetic, had indicated to Chief Justice John Roberts that because of the omicron surge, she did not feel safe being in a room with people who are unmasked, and that the chief justice “in some form asked the other justices to mask up.”
On Wednesday, Sotomayor and Gorsuch issued a statement saying that she did not ask him to wear a mask. NPR’s report did not say that she did. Then, the chief justice issued a statement saying he “did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other justice to wear a mask on the bench.” The NPR report said the chief justice’s ask to the justices had come “in some form.”
NPR stands by its reporting.
Yep. Wiggle room. Totally unsurprising.
–Dana
Stick to the facts, ma’am. Why couldn’t someone of Totenberg’s stature and reputation actually use viable sources to confirm events…unless she didn’t want an accurate report.
Dana (5395f9) — 1/19/2022 @ 1:40 pm“[Facts]? We ain’t got no [facts]. We don’t need no [facts]. I don’t have to show you any stinking [facts].”
Horatio (6f8983) — 1/19/2022 @ 1:56 pm@1. Agreed.
It was meant to be nebulous and inferential. Maybe her contract is up for renewal.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/19/2022 @ 2:03 pmIf there’s some weasely explanation for how she’s not technically wrong they need to share it because at this point it looks like she badly mis-represented whatever she was told. NPR typically does decent reporting, with a left of center bias on much of what they select to report. This is a disappointing performance on their part.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/19/2022 @ 2:16 pmAlso, her initial tweet clearly implies that the impetus was centered around justice sotomayor. An email from the desk of the CJ or some similar technicality wouldn’t support that.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/19/2022 @ 2:20 pmWhy is there even such a thing as government-funded public radio? What’s next, government-managed raisins? Oh…wait.
https://www.raisins.org/
norcal (d4ed1d) — 1/19/2022 @ 2:25 pmOT:
wincing…
Searching for transcripts….
whembly (7e0293) — 1/19/2022 @ 2:34 pmWhy wear a mask if you don’t care about others. Nietzsche super menche.
asset (149569) — 1/19/2022 @ 3:01 pm@7 oh good lord what he say
Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/19/2022 @ 3:10 pmMaybe he hinted? Or passed on a general request from Sotomayor? Or maybe not even a request to wear a mask, but to notify her if they were going to or not?
It is clear anyway, from the words “in some form” that Nina Totenberg’s sources, at best, were second or third hand. The words “no further comment” could indicate that there is a little something to the story, except that it didn’t take place the way Nina Totenberg said, and there are no hard feelings. And it is not at all like the feelings between Justices Frankfurter and Douglas when they both had gotten not long before on the bench.
But the big question is: Would Sotomayor have attended if all present had worn masks? Did the other seven justices wear masks because of something they had discussed? Or did they all make the decision to wear or not wear a mask independently of each other?
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 3:35 pmSammy, In your opinion does NT initial tweet seem to give the reader an accurate understanding based on what we know now?
Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/19/2022 @ 3:37 pmJust terrible reporting,,,and awful journalism. That’s example 9,914 of why Twitter is garbage. It encourages people to be irresponsibly quick in their commentary…..and smug and snotty. It certainly fit her narrative….and that’s all that was needed. Slow down, take a breath…do better.
We need to dial back the virtue signaling…..if there is one group that I don’t think we have to police, it’s SCOTUS. Yes, both sides have been worn out by this pandemic, rules, and the disruption to our collective routines. But we need to learn to put some of this in perspective.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:22 pmInside Edition covered this story.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:27 pmNPR stands by its reporting says Nina Totenberg:
Yep. Wiggle room.
Dana (5395f9) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:30 pmTime123 (9f42ee) — 1/19/2022 @ 3:37 pm
We don’t know
All she said was (of this is the tweet you are talkingg about)
That has not been squarely denied.
But Nina Totenberg could at least say she’s uncertain now.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:33 pmNow it could be that somebody at the Supreme Court made up a whole story about Justice Sotomayor being willing to attend if everybody else wore a mask.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:34 pmThe NPR report said the chief justice’s ask to the justices had come “in some form.”
Body language!
nk (1d9030) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:37 pmNina Totenberg’s sources (meaning at least two, but it’s even possible that one person could have heard it from the other) told her they didn’t know exactly what happened.
“in some form” indicates a gap in knowledge.
Or maybe instead two different versions of how the Chief Justice supposedly asked the others to mask.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:41 pm@12: That’s example 9,914 of why Twitter is garbage. It encourages people to be irresponsibly quick in their commentary
that’s a ridiculous take
this was a full fledged report, not a tweet
totenberg is a partisan working for a partisan outlet
this sort of crap has been her schtick since before there was a twitter and even before al gore invented the internet
JF (e1156d) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:46 pmYes, the link is the npr web page.
In #14 Dana quoted from NPR quoting it it, and the statements from the Supreme Court do not contradict it, as they said.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:53 pmNPR didn’t write the Supreme Court statements. They could have flatly denied everything.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 4:55 pmRoberts could just simply have polled the other justices about their masking intentions and reported back to Sotomayor
That’s not really asking the other justices to mask up.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 5:01 pmC’mon. Really. If the conservatives had it in for Sotomayor, why would they wait until Trump was out of office before making the play?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/19/2022 @ 5:17 pmWhy is there even such a thing as government-funded public radio? What’s next, government-managed raisins? Oh…wait.
I continually expect the formation of a National Lawn-mowing and Snow-shoveling Corps. Just think of all the unmet needs!
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/19/2022 @ 5:18 pmNow it could be that somebody at the Supreme Court made up a whole story about Justice Sotomayor being willing to attend if everybody else wore a mask.
Perhaps, but it could also be that she had no intention of attending and that led to Gorsuch not wanting to bother, given that her protection did not depend on a mask.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/19/2022 @ 5:19 pmIt’s nice to see that they are all on the same page that no one said the specific phrase, “Neil, I’d like you to wear a mask on the bench.” to Neil Gorsuch.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/19/2022 @ 5:40 pmI did not read the whole NPR article. Did Nina indicate in some form that Roberts keeps a tank of mutated perch with laser beams on their heads?
nk (1d9030) — 1/19/2022 @ 5:59 pm#27 Careful – We don’t want to alert Putin and Xi.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 1/19/2022 @ 6:11 pmCareful – We don’t want to alert Putin and Xi.
They have a dreadful sense of one-upmanship
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/19/2022 @ 6:17 pmSotomayor (or her staff) were probably the source for the story.
Rip Murdock (379be7) — 1/19/2022 @ 7:03 pmTotenberg should have at the very least investigated for the Anita Hill leak, and hauled before a Senate committee and forced to testify-better yet a grand jury. There is no reporter’s privilege not to testify in the law.
Rip Murdock (379be7) — 1/19/2022 @ 7:12 pm30 Rip Murdock (379be7) — 1/19/2022 @ 7:03 pm
I think it’s from some other chambers. Someone who doesn’t like Gorsuch, or maybe, semi-paradoxically, doesn’t like wearing a mask (and thinks it was all for nothing because Sotomayor didn’t attend in person). But more than one person.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 7:35 pmMaybe could be Sotomayor’s people, but they’d know more about what her thinking was.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/19/2022 @ 7:37 pm“this was a full fledged report, not a tweet”
My bad I missed the first link and assumed the posted tweet drew the attention. It is certainly worse being in an article…an article that should demand more careful editting. Though after reading the article, it is certainly aimed at a specific audience that wants a partisan shovel full. I don’t read her and just vaguely remember Totenberg from TV round tables. My suspicion is that conservatives are not a big percentage of her readership. It doesn’t excuse it…especially for someone who claims to be a journalist….but it’s where we’re at. If you are seen as being against Roe, then it’s easy for NT to extrapolate that to every other evil. We do see it on both sides…and even by partisan commenters at this site……
AJ_Liberty (3cb02f) — 1/19/2022 @ 8:05 pmIs this what a Confederacy of Dunces actually looks like?
Holy smokes! Defending or justifying a Fourth Estate boondoggle like this is incredible.
BuDuh (4a7846) — 1/19/2022 @ 10:15 pmNothing is worse than dementia joe xiden
mg (8cbc69) — 1/20/2022 @ 2:54 amAu contraire, mon frère…those who knew he had dementia, and voted for him anyhow are much worse
Horatio (6f8983) — 1/20/2022 @ 5:56 amSammy, I think you’re being way too literal.
The presentation of the material strongly implies that a request was made out of concern for Justice Sotomayor and the Justice Gorsuch, despite sitting next to her, refused. It further implies that this is the reason she participated remotely and that there is some bad blood between them.
I’m perfectly willing to admit that a message about masks was delivered in some form. But that doesn’t come close to supporting the thrust of the article.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/20/2022 @ 6:03 am11. 15. The article on the npr web page is not so wrong, if it is wrong at all, but the tweet by Nina Totenberg is completely wrong.
https://twitter.com/NinaTotenberg/status/1483386182440566785
Gorsuch did not refuse because he was not asked; while it’s possible Alito thinks he could have or should have been Chief Justice, there is nothing to suppose this is something preoccupying him; and nothing to back up (besides the fact of a leak) that anyone is even mildly upset about Gorsuch not wearing a mask; the competition to be the successor to Scalia is mostly in her imagination; and the basic theme that the Supreme Court justices are unhappy with each other probably would rate three or four Pinocchios. (she has the conservatives also upset with each other)
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/20/2022 @ 6:19 amThe part of the npr web page report that I am most chary of is the claim that Sotomayor would have attended the oral arguments and the weekly conference if Gorsuch had worn a mask. That has not been conformed by the Supreme Court’s official statements.
The npr report is also implicitly critical of Gorsuch for not doing so.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/20/2022 @ 6:26 amDespite the fact that the lovely Mrs Reines’ — just because Nina Reines hasn’t respected her husband enough to have taken his last name does not mean that I will show him the same disrespect — report has been discredited, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Helen Ubiñas Dunne has run with it anyway.
According to Mrs Dunne, it’s not just the guy who refuses to wear a diaper on his face who’s boorish, but everyone else who fails to wag their fingers and scold him is as well. Mrs Dunne’s first name really ought to be Karen.
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (b9a1cd) — 1/20/2022 @ 6:37 amSammy, That’s pretty close to how I see it. Terrible reporting by NPR and inexcusable by NT.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/20/2022 @ 6:41 am1955 called to ask how you’re doing.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/20/2022 @ 7:08 amhasn’t respected her husband enough to have taken his last name
As the Greeks would say, and they do say it, they might have “evened it up with the dowry”.
nk (1d9030) — 1/20/2022 @ 7:38 amMr 123 wrote:
You’re two years too late; I was born in 1953.
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (b9a1cd) — 1/20/2022 @ 7:56 amClearly Mr. Reines has no respect for his wife either.
Leviticus (d0e7f3) — 1/20/2022 @ 8:31 amThey’re probably bound together in a joyless disrespectful marriage by some irrational tendency like Catholicism.
Leviticus (d0e7f3) — 1/20/2022 @ 8:32 amThere was also this (which I think was only online)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/briefing/supreme-court-covid-mask-mandate.html
Also:
It’s not cvlear to me f he means the Supreme Court tells them to wear that kind of mask, or twells those who wear masks to wear that kind, and it is not clear from that if it requires masks at all
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/20/2022 @ 1:19 pmper https://www.supremecourt.gov/announcements/Winter%202022%20argument%20COVID%20protocols.pdf the supreme court has the following requirements for attorneys participating in oral arguments:
* mandatory pcr test the morning before the argument; positive-testing attorneys must argue remotely
* attorneys must wear n95 or kn95 masks in the courtroom, *except when presenting argument*, and must wear masks at all times within the court building.
i don’t know how the two last points are reconciled.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/20/2022 @ 1:40 pmIt is refreshing to see that the court doesn’t discriminate against the naturally immune.
BuDuh (4a7846) — 1/20/2022 @ 1:52 pmNPR reporting on Supreme Court mask controversy merits clarification
……..
…….. Totenberg said she has multiple, solid sources familiar with the inner workings of the court who told her that Roberts conveyed something to his fellow justices about Sotomayor’s concerns in the face of the omicron wave. Totenberg said her NPR editors were aware of who those sources are and stood by the reporting.
Totenberg and her editors should have chosen a word other than “asked.”……
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/20/2022 @ 6:02 pm……….
No one has challenged the broader focus of Totenberg’s original story, which asserts that the justices in general are not getting along well. The controversy over the anecdotal lead, which was intended to be illustrative, has overwhelmed the uncontested premise of the story.
………
A tempest in a teapot.
Nina Totenberg disagrees with the Public editor” at NPR. (By the way this is only about the written report published by NPR, not her tweet (which NPR is not responsible for and not standing by, although reporters have in places been fired for tweets) nor, probably anything she may have said oirally on NPR,PBS or anywhere else.)
https://www.newser.com/story/315945/nprs-nina-totenberg-fires-back-at-public-editor.html
The public editor said the word asked should be chaned to suggested
https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2022/01/20/1074540207/npr-reporting-on-supreme-court-mask-controversy-merits-clarification
But that could also be too strong. Because we don’t know what, if anything, Roberts did. He could have merely polled the other justices.
Again, we have no idea whether or not it is true that, but for Gorsuch not wearing a mask, Sotomayor would have been present.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 1/21/2022 @ 12:36 pmaphrael (4c4719) — 1/20/2022 @ 1:40 pm
Because masks can muffle speech, the attorneys don’t have to wear masks when standing before the court. When merely in the building, they must wear masks.
It is, of course, always in order for any justice to speak, and Roberts is not their boss.
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