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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Trump's National Emergency Sets Up Legal Fight Over Spending AuthorityDoes Trump have the constitutional power to ignore a congressional vote that did not provide him all the money he wanted for a Southern border wall? That issue could be decided by the Supreme Court. -
When President Trump declared a national emergency for border wall funding Friday, he said he expected legal challenges. The central question will likely revolve around constitutionality.
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The high court effectively blocked the restrictive law pending a decision on whether the court will hear the case. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal justices for the temporary stay. -
Total Wine, the wine superstore, is trying to expand into Tennessee, but is running into a state residency law. The store is calling it discrimination and made its case Thursday at the Supreme Court.
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The Supreme Court heard arguments on Thursday in a case about double jeopardy that could have important consequences for presidential pardons and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
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At issue in the case are the laws which allow state and local governments to confiscate cars, cash and even homes if they are used in the commission of a crime — any crime.
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The Supreme Court hears a capital case in which it will have to decide whether nearly half of Oklahoma, a massive area including much of Tulsa, is an Indian reservation.
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In a narrow ruling, Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, said the White House did not provide CNN's Jim Acosta with the due process required to legally revoke his press pass.
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The court said that because of security concerns, Kavanaugh would not walk down the court's long outside staircase with the chief justice. -
SCOTUS To Hear Lawsuit Against Sudan On USS Cole AttackSupreme Court justices hear a lawsuit against the country of Sudan brought by victims of an attack against the USS Cole in 2000. The case hinges on whether the notice was sent to the correct address.
