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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The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would take up an appeal from the NCAA defending its rules that impose certain restrictions on paying college athletes.
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The Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit brought by Republican-led states alleging election fraud, ending one of the last legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election.
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In 2004 it was the famous "Woman In Gold" painting by Gustav Klimt. Now it is the Guelph Treasure. Both were owned by Jews and expropriated by the Nazis. -
In April the justices said future split verdicts in criminal trials are unconstitutional. Now the question is what about such verdicts in the past — potentially several thousand of them.
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Justices said the Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive order limiting attendance in places of worship violates the First Amendment. -
In July, an assailant killed federal Judge Esther Salas' son and wounded her husband. NPR talks with Salas about what happened that day.
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Judge Amy Coney Barrett fielded questions from senators on Tuesday on the second day of her confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court.
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On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings to consider the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
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The hearings, which start at 9 a.m. ET on Monday, begin against the backdrop of early voting that has begun in many states and just 22 days before Election Day. -
The confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, looms over the Supreme Court as it began a new term Monday.
