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After news broke of the attorney generals resignation, journalists got ahead of themselves

Justice Attorney General Eric Holder is set to resign from his post after six years in the Obama administration (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Hours before Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation Thursday afternoon, speculation among reporters about his replacement had already hit a fever pitch. A number of news outlets simply listed the possibilities, while still more began ranking them in earnest, all with little or no sourcing.

NPRbroke news of Holders announcement at 10:40 am, citing two anonymous sources saying that a leading candidate [to replace him] is Solicitor General Don Verrilli, the administrations top representative to the Supreme Court. The forward-looking detail was a natural fit in the story and, to be sure, speculation isnt inherently bad. But amid the Beltways hypercompetitive media market, such details quickly mutate into rampant, often empty conjecture that finds its way into written pieces.

In news stories following NPRs report, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and Reuters listed possible candidates without naming a favorite. But analyses published soon after instead gravitated toward NPRs Verrilli claim, including The Los Angeles Times, which prefaced its speculation with particularly lax sourcing: Some observers believe WSJ.com devoted a short post to Verrilli being back in the spotlight. And within a few hours, Yahoo News and The Daily Beast labeled the solicitor general the leading candidate emphasis added while analyses at the Post and Vox called him the frontrunner. All of these stories either cited NPRs reporting or referenced anonymous sources.

But it didnt end there, as evident by the Washington Examiners piece: On Wednesday, two names surfaced as possible replacements: Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. While Patrick served as an assistant attorney general under President Bill Clinton, its unclear from the Examiner piece whether it was administration officials or simply other journalists who had floated his name in todays discussion. On WSJ.com, meanwhile, a blog post stated, without sourcing, that Patrick was instantly anointed as the favorite to succeed Mr. Holder. Politico called him one much talked-about contender while NBC reported that the Massachusetts governor was the top name always mentioned to possibly replace Holder. Readers cant help but wonder whether the sources referenced in such stories are simply other stories.

Perhaps the emptiest speculation came from a BuzzFeed post, Team Kamala Harris Sees Path to D.C. After Holder Resignation. The piece, suggesting Californias attorney general as a Holder replacement, quotes a Harris backer who heads a nonprofit advocacy group and a press release from Harris herself.

Of course, any of the names mentioned above could very well head the Justice Department one day. And its a reporters job to analyze the administrations thought process, especially when it comes to filling cabinet positions. But until speculation is backed up with real insightand named sourcesspeculation is merely a shot in the dark.

Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to NPR as National Public Radio. The latter changed its name to NPR in 2010.

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Reporters jump the gun on Eric Holder replacement speculation

WASHINGTON Eric Holder, who served as the public face of the Obama administration's legal fight against terrorism and weighed in on issues of racial fairness, is resigning after six years on the job. He is the nation's first black attorney general.

The White House said that President Barack Obama would announce Holder's departure later Thursday and that Holder planned to remain at the Justice Department until his successor was in place. White House officials said Obama had not made a final decision on a replacement for Holder, who was one of the most progressive voices in his Cabinet.

Advisers to Obama and Holder said the attorney general had been planning his departure with the president for some time. Some possible candidates who have been discussed among administration officials include Solicitor General Don Verrilli, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a former Rhode Island attorney general.

Holder, a 63-year-old former judge and prosecutor, took office in early 2009 as the U.S. government grappled with the worst financial crisis in decades and with divisive questions on the handling of captured terrorism suspects, issues that helped shape his tenure as the country's top law enforcement official. He is the fourth-longest serving attorney general in U.S. history.

He also took on questions of racial fairness, working to improve police relations with minorities, enforce civil rights laws and remove disparities in sentencing. Most recently he became the Obama administration's point man in the federal response to the police shooting last month of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri. In the shooting's aftermath, he enlisted a team of criminal justice researchers to study possible racial bias in law enforcement.

The news of Holder's resignation came as civil rights leaders and the families of Brown and Eric Garner, who died in a New York City police chokehold this summer, were appearing at a news conference in Washington calling on the Justice Department to take over investigations into the deaths.

The Rev. Al Sharpton urged the White House to meet with civil rights representatives before appointing a replacement. "There has not been an attorney general with a civil rights record equal to Attorney General Eric Holder," Sharpton said.

In his first few years on the job, Holder endured a succession of controversies over, among other things, an ultimately abandoned plan to try terrorism suspects in New York City, a botched gun-running probe along the Southwest border that prompted Republican calls for his resignation, and what was seen as failure to hold banks accountable for the economic near-meltdown.

But he stayed on after Obama won re-election, turning in his final stretch to issues that he said were personally important to him. He promoted voting rights and legal benefits for same-sex couples and pushed for changes to a criminal justice system that he said meted out punishment disproportionately to minorities.

Stung by criticism that the department hadn't been aggressive enough in targeting financial misconduct, Holder in the past year and a half secured criminal guilty pleas from two foreign banks and multibillion-dollar civil settlements with American banks arising from the sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities. Even then, critics noted that no individuals were held accountable.

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State & National

Eric Holder has resigned, ending the reign of the most racially divisive and political attorney general in modern history.

Now he can do ceremonial things like attend baseball games. The Washington Nationals might ask him to attend the first game of the year; he can go to the pitchers mound and throw out the Second Amendment.

Like Obama, Holder came into office with a racial score to settle, even though they were both products of affirmative action. They see race in everything. One cannot sort laundry nor have ones teeth whitened without the two calling it racist.

The administration inexplicably jumped into the Cambridge police case regarding Professor Gates (saying the cops acted stupidly when it turns out they did not), the Trayvon Martin shooting and, most recently, engaged in a one-sided intervention on behalf of Michael Brown in the Ferguson, Mo., manufactured drama. Instead of giving the benefit of the doubt to law enforcement, which works for him, Holder immediately sided with Michael Brown and Al Sharpton before the case was even investigated. And Obama awkwardly pointed the finger at the Ferguson police in his latest UN speech.

Racial wounds were healing until this administration started cutting them open again. The result is a much more racially divided country than it was when Obama took office in 2008.

Holder used the Espionage Act to spy on reporters he viewed as opponents of Obama. James Rosen of Fox News was the main target on whom he had his Justice Department spy and wiretap. (Fox News what are the odds?) His snooping produced nothing but a salvo of chilling intimidation throughout journalism.

And just to let bureaucrats know he had their backs if they did the Presidents bidding, he looked the other way as the IRS targeted conservative groups and destroyed e-mail evidence.

Like a plaintiffs attorney who advertises on a bus, Holder went after business for money when he could. He bragged in 2012 about punishing American businesses with huge fines, which just ends up costing us consumers. Holders DOJ knows it can get away with such predatory political legal actions because companies have to pay and America wont pay attention. Americans spend more time nuancing intentional grounding rulings in football than in watching court cases.

Under Holder, you must have an ID to get into the Justice Department building in D.C., but you dont need one to vote. And guns are only to protect public officials and celebrities, not your home.

He has hurt blacks more than he has helped them. At the behest of his Democrat buddies in the teachers unions, he sued a Louisiana school voucher program. He opposes charter schools, which help disadvantaged minorities to escape failing schools and advance themselves. Politics always trump principles and the law with these two.

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HART: Holder, The Great Divider, exits stage far left

WASHINGTON (AP) Eric Holder, Americas first black attorney general and an unflinching champion of civil rights in enforcing the nations laws, announced his resignation Thursday after leading the Justice Department since the first days of President Barack Obamas term. He is the fourth-longest-serving attorney general in U.S. history.

Holder, the administrations point man on the civil rights investigation into the police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old in Ferguson, Mo., wont leave until a replacement is confirmed, which means he could remain in office for months.

Senate Republicans signaled they were preparing for a confirmation fight after years of battles with Holder. Said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell: I will be scrutinizing the presidents replacement nominee to ensure the Justice Department finally returns to prioritizing law enforcement over partisan concerns.

In an emotional ceremony at the White House, Obama called Holder the peoples lawyer and credited him with driving down both the nations crime and incarceration rate the first time they have declined together in more than 40 years.

Through it all, hes shown a deep and abiding fidelity to one of our most cherished ideals as a people, and that is equal justice under the law, Obama said.

Holder responded by speaking of how he was inspired as a boy by Robert Kennedys leadership on civil rights at the Justice Department, his voice choking as he expressed his thanks to Obama and his own family. You got through it, Obama could be heard telling Holder as the audience stood and applauded.

In a speech earlier this week, Holder described the dual perspective he brought to the job and how it applied to the Ferguson shooting, in which a young black man was shot and killed by a white policeman. He said he had the utmost respect for police as a former prosecutor and the brother of an officer. But, he added, As an African-American man who has been stopped and searched by police in situations where such actions were not warranted, I also carry with me an understanding of the mistrust that some citizens harbor.

Holder told The Associated Press in an interview that hes not sure whether the Justice Department will finish its investigation into the shooting before he leaves. I dont want to rush them, Holder said. He said once out of office, he will direct attention to issues that have animated me during his tenure, including criminal justice and civil rights.

If you asked me what my biggest regret was, I would say that it was the failure to pass any responsible and reasonable gun safety legislation after the shootings in Newtown, Holder said. He said he thought in the aftermath of the school shootings in Connecticut that the nation would embrace change that was not radical but really reasonable on gun ownership.

Holder aggressively enforced the Voting Rights Act, addressed drug-sentencing guidelines that led to disparities between white and black convicts, extended legal benefits to same-sex couples and refused to defend a law that allowed states to disregard gay marriages. He oversaw the decision to prosecute terror suspects in U.S. civilian courts instead of at Guantanamo Bay and helped establish a legal rationale for lethal drone strikes on suspects overseas.

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Holder stepping down as attorney general

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder speaks to a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston) more >

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that the federal government will recognize same-sex marriages in states affected by the Supreme Courts recent decision not to review decisions that overturned marriage bans in those states.

We will not delay in fulfilling our responsibility to afford every eligible couple, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, the full rights and responsibilities to which they are entitled, Mr. Holder said. With their long-awaited unions, we are slowly drawing closer to full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans nationwide.

Heterosexual-marriage advocates were hoping the Supreme Court would overturn several lower court rulings that legalized same-sex marriage. But instead, the nation's highest court declined to even hear the case, essentially letting the lower court rulings stand and gay marriage to become legal.

The states chiefly affected by the ruling are Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah and as of Friday morning Arizona. Mr. Holders announcement was widely expected by legal experts, who point to the administrations quick support of same-sex marriage in any state it becomes legal.

The steady progress toward LGBT equality weve seen and celebrated is important and historic, Mr. Holder said. But there remain too many places in this country where men and women cannot visit their partners in the hospital, or be recognized as the rightful parents of their own adopted children; where people can be discriminated against just because they are gay.

But Mr. Holder did add that the Justice Department would be ready should the debate about same-sex marriage ever eventually reach the Supreme Court.

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Eric Holder: Government will recognize new state same-sex marriages