On November 29, 2018, the Santa Monica Observer posted an article with the headline “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Will Retire from the US Supreme Court in January, 2019.” The article claims that Ginsburg told clerks that her malignant melanoma had resurfaced, causing her retirement.
The article was written at a politically convenient moment Supreme Court news. Ginsburg was reported to have had been hospitalized on November 8 after falling and breaking her ribs, which led many to question the justice’s health. In addition, fall 2018 was a particularly controversial time for the court, as Brett Kavanaugh was approved under allegations of sexual misconduct.
There seems to be an obvious spin to the article. It states that Ginsburg’s cancer is the reason why democrats were “ carefully orchestrating weak 37 year old allegations against Kavanaugh by Women he barely remembers knowing in High School and College.” Because of this angle, the “news” found its way on to numerous conservative online blogs and forums, but it was never picked up by a larger fake news outlet.
Most of information shared in the Observer article was false. First, Ginsburg has had pancreatic and colon cancer, but there has never been any confirmation that she has even had malignant melanoma a first time. She has been in the hospital recently because of her broken ribs, not because of her cancer. And, in addition, she was up and working the same week as her hospitalization, and her health is not a current concern.
In addition, in August 2018, Ginsburg stated that she does not plan on retiring until she is 90 (she is now 85). She has hired law clerks for the next two Supreme Court terms. There has been no information from Ginsburg in the 6 months since that would suggest she has changed her mind and will retire sooner.
There are not only factual issues in the article, but also consistent simple grammatical errors. There is odd spacing in between each period, and random words, like “Women” are capitalized throughout the article. This would suggest that it was not the work of a professional journalist.
In fact, the identity of the article’s writer also seems to be fake. “Stan Greene”’s profile on the Santa Monica Observer’s website does not match the same reporter’s profile on muckrack.com. When the reporter’s profile image is reversed google searched, a variety of twitter accounts with different names and the same picture show up.
Snopes found similar errors in the article and the website in its entirety. “In short, this ‘news’ about an imminent Ginsburg retirement was reported exclusively by a single obscure site — one that publishes fake news written by fake people,” the Snopes article stated. “Its credibility should be judged accordingly.”
Sources:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/11/29/ruth-bader-ginsburg-retire-january-2019/
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/29/politics/ruth-bader-ginsburg-scalia-new-york/index.html
https://muckrack.com/stan-greene
https://247sports.com/college/alabama/Board/117/Contents/Ginsburg-to-retire-Jan-2019-123133997/
https://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=49925
URwrong - facts against fake news 