Nina Totenberg
Nina Totenberg is NPR's award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Her reports air regularly on NPR's critically acclaimed newsmagazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition.
Totenberg's coverage of the Supreme Court and legal affairs has won her widespread recognition. She is often featured in documentaries — most recently RBG — that deal with issues before the court. As Newsweek put it, "The mainstays [of NPR] are Morning Edition and All Things Considered. But the creme de la creme is Nina Totenberg."
In 1991, her ground-breaking report about University of Oklahoma Law Professor Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment by Judge Clarence Thomas led the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings to consider Hill's charges. NPR received the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for its gavel-to-gavel coverage — anchored by Totenberg — of both the original hearings and the inquiry into Anita Hill's allegations, and for Totenberg's reports and exclusive interview with Hill.
That same coverage earned Totenberg additional awards, including the Long Island University George Polk Award for excellence in journalism; the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting; the Carr Van Anda Award from the Scripps School of Journalism; and the prestigious Joan S. Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based national affairs/public policy reporting, which also acknowledged her coverage of Justice Thurgood Marshall's retirement.
Totenberg was named Broadcaster of the Year and honored with the 1998 Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcasting from the National Press Foundation. She is the first radio journalist to receive the award. She is also the recipient of the American Judicature Society's first-ever award honoring a career body of work in the field of journalism and the law. In 1988, Totenberg won the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for her coverage of Supreme Court nominations. The jurors of the award stated, "Ms. Totenberg broke the story of Judge (Douglas) Ginsburg's use of marijuana, raising issues of changing social values and credibility with careful perspective under deadline pressure."
Totenberg has been honored seven times by the American Bar Association for continued excellence in legal reporting and has received more than two dozen honorary degrees. On a lighter note, Esquire magazine twice named her one of the "Women We Love."
A frequent contributor on TV shows, she has also written for major newspapers and periodicals — among them, The New York Times Magazine, The Harvard Law Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and New York Magazine, and others.
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A videographer spent two decades documenting the salvage of the Queen Anne's Revenge, and when North Carolina put his work online without permission, he sued.
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In a redo of an issue decided just four years ago, a newly constituted Supreme Court once again weighs abortion regulations.
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In the short run, the fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau hangs in the balance. In the long run, the future of independent regulatory agencies are at stake.
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Justices said the parents of a Mexican boy fatally shot by a border agent can't sue. They then looked at whether advising immigrants to stay in the country illegally violates the First Amendment.
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The chief justice, who is presiding over President Trump's Senate impeachment trial, has declined twice to ask a question from Sen. Rand Paul.
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At Wednesday's arguments, a majority of the justices suggested a major expansion of public funding for parochial schools.
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For the first time, the high court will rule on "no-aid" state constitutional provisions that conservative religious groups and school choice advocates have long sought to invalidate.
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The closure in 2013 of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge infuriated motorists and jeopardized public safety. When it turned out it was a political vendetta, it became a criminal case.
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The "Bridgegate" scandal infuriated motorists and endangered public safety, but if the past is prologue, the high court could treat it as much ado about nothing.
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Although the atmosphere during the Clinton trial differs from today's, Roberts is likely to follow the precedent set by the man he once clerked for and play a limited role.