NPR lies. Media side with the liars

Associate Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch sit beside one another in the courtroom. She no longer attends hearings in person because of her fear of covid. Given her age and comorbidities, I can understand that.

The press cannot.

Nina Totenberg, 78, of NPR reported, "Gorsuch didn't mask despite Sotomayor's covid worries, leading her to telework."

Totenberg said, "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."

Sotomayor denied this. Gorsuch denied this. Roberts denied this.

NPR refused to correct her error, instead it said it "stands behind Nina Totenberg’s reporting."

Somebody is lying. Three justices deny the report. The decent thing for Totenberg to do would be to name her sources -- all of them -- or else retract her story.

It's called put up or shut up.

But the press never admits its errors. Oh, they may correct a misspelled name or an age that was incorrect. They make a big deal out of errors and they should correct them. Experience tells me that people don't mind errors in flattering feature stories, but they will not overlook any typos in a negative report.

The press does not own up to errors. In this case, Totenberg's buddies in the press circled the wagons around her. They see her as a national treasure. 

The New York Times reported, "The justices’ statements did not say whether Justice Sotomayor’s absence from the courtroom was a consequence of Justice Gorsuch’s decision not to wear a mask. But Chief Justice Roberts rejected the assertion that he had asked his colleagues to wear masks on the bench."

Well, the justices were being polite. She has covered the court for a million years and the staff likes her, No one wants to make trouble.

Over at New York magazine, they called Sotomayor and Gorsuch said, "Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us.  It is false.  While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends."

It said, "Coming from lawyers who pride themselves on precisely interpreting text, this is a dodge. NPR’s Nina Totenberg didn’t report that Sotomayor had asked anything of Gorsuch. She wrote, '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.' CNN’s Ariane de Vogue even wrote in her follow-up, which preceded the denial, 'The source said she did not directly ask Gorsuch to wear a mask.' NPR this afternoon said it stood by Totenberg’s reporting."

Of course, the justices were not rebuking Totenberg directly. Others have said this as people are wont to do, and they are getting their facts wrong.

In other news, Twitter reported, "Fact-checkers from The News Literacy Project, MSN, AP, Leadstories and PolitiFact say an image of a news broadcast banner from CNN has been fabricated and is satire. The edited chyron was created by a satire website, Babylon Bee, and never aired a CNN spokesperson confirmed to PolitiFact."

Thank goodness our Internet Overlords are protecting us from satire. Now if they could protect us from doddering old fools at NPR.