Politico Savaged for ‘Erroneously’ Putting Justice Sonia Sotomayor at DC Dinner After Court Argument Over COVID Mandates
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Politico’s Playbook newsletter issued three versions of a correction retracting a story that falsely claimed Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor dined out in Washington D.C. with Democratic lawmakers Friday night.
As detailed in the correction (below), a photo sent in by a tipster misidentified Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s wife, Iris Weinshall, for Justice Sotomayor at the D.C. restaurant Le Diplomate. Earlier Friday, Justice Sotomayor participated remotely from her chambers for oral arguments about COVID-19 protocols; Justice Neil Gorsuch remained unmasked during the session.
Here’s the brief as it currently stands on the Politico website:
SPOTTED: Speaker NANCY PELOSI, Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER and wife, IRIS WEINSHALL, Sens. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn.) and DICK DURBIN (D-Ill.) dining together at Le Diplomate on Friday night. Pic
The item is linked to a photo of those mentioned above, sitting around a table.
“Our tipster got it wrong, but we should have double-checked,” reads Politico’s correction, which can be read in its entirety below.
However, the “deep regrets” did not keep Politico-watchers from blasting the site for the error. Here’s a sampling:
Politico failed to practice basic journalism before sending their Saturday morning newsletter to print. “I did not hear from them [Politico] prior to publication,” Justin Goodman, Chuck Schumer’s top communication official, told The Daily Beast. https://t.co/D6KZZx4bVD
— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) January 8, 2022
There really should be a media regulator to dish out fines to the likes of Politico who make such fundamentally lazy and dangerous errors in their reporting. Misidentifying Iris Weinshall for Sonia Sotomayor, and letting it slide for hours, is deeply damaging to a SCOTUS Justice.
— Tess
– fully vaccinated, rocks a mask. (@violetscrawley) January 8, 2022
Our tipster got it wrong? No, Politico got it wrong. Stupendously wrong. You attacked the integrity of a Supreme Court justice, in the most egregious fashion–without checking to see if the information was accurate.
Where is the apology to Justice Sotomayor?— Art Martin (@gartmartin9) January 8, 2022
However, at least one responder was able to give the error a positive spin:
Given the attention that the erroneous post got from the audience @politico seems to be targeting these days, I wonder if the editor got a promotion.
— Michaleen (@michaleen) January 8, 2022
