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.
-
Justice Anthony Kennedy appears likely to cast the deciding vote in a Supreme Court case involving a death row inmate's right to help from a mental health expert who is independent of the prosecution.
-
The Supreme Court will decide if an Alabama inmate should have his sentence revisited because his attorney didn't get help from an independent mental health expert when he was sentenced to death. -
At Wednesday's oral arguments, a clear majority of justices seemed troubled by a Missouri policy that bars state money from going to religious schools for playground improvements. -
A request for Missouri state funds to resurface its playground landed before the Supreme Court Wednesday because that preschool is part of a church ministry.
-
The Supreme Court hears arguments today on whether Missouri should provide a grant to a church preschool, or if that violates the state's constitution. The state's new governor has abandoned the rule. -
Gorsuch looked like a kid on the first day of high school when he made his debut on the U.S. Supreme Court — sitting tall and asking lots of questions. -
On Monday, Neil Gorsuch was sworn in as the ninth justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, finally filling the vacant seat left by the death of Antonin Scalia over a year ago. NPR looks ahead at his first term.
-
Senate Confirms Gorsuch To Supreme CourtSenate Republicans unleashed the "nuclear option" on Thursday, essentially ensuring that Neil Gorsuch would be confirmed on Friday. The final vote was 54-45, mostly along party lines. -
The Senate fell short of the 60 votes it needed to proceed on the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch, sparking procedural moves that invoked the "nuclear option" — lowering the threshold to advance Supreme Court nominees with a simple majority.
-
Senate Democrats on Monday secured the votes needed to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. This sets up a political fight that will change the way future high court nominees are considered.
