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 high court ruled for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws. -
The Supreme Court has ruled that a 25-year-old law that had barred most states from legalizing sports betting is unconstitutional — opening the door to legalized sports gambling across the country.
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The court decided only the accused have a right to profess guilt or innocence, not a lawyer. And in the age of Zipcar, you still maintain a right to privacy even if you aren't on a rental agreement. -
"Congress can regulate sports gambling directly," the court wrote in a decision released Monday, "but if it elects not to do so, each state is free to act on its own." -
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case considering the legality of the Trump administration's travel ban. The justices appear ready to side with the administration.
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Why Dozens Of National Security Experts Have Come Out Against Trump's Travel BanThe Supreme Court hears arguments on the ban Wednesday, and a bipartisan group of former national security officials from the Reagan to Obama administrations are urging the court to strike it down. -
The last time the Supreme Court considered whether businesses had to collect sales taxes for out-of-state purchases, the court ruled that they did not have to do so. But that was before the Internet. On Tuesday, the court considered the question again.
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A multibillion-dollar dispute on Internet sales taxes landed at the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The decision could have far-reaching consequences for consumers, states and companies large and small. -
On Wednesday, federal judicial nominee Wendy Vitter attempted to walk back controversial comments she previously made about abortion and birth control.
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Judicial Nominee Wendy Vitter Gets Tough Questions On Birth Control And AbortionAt her confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Vitter was grilled by Democratic senators about her failure to disclose public statements of controversial anti-abortion views.
