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 Supreme Court tests whether the Patent and Trademark Office violated the First Amendment when it refused to register the "disparaging" band name, "The Slants." -
In Battle Over Band Name, Supreme Court Considers Free Speech And TrademarksThe Patent and Trademark Office denied registration to an Asian-American rock band named The Slants; the musicians say they want to re-appropriate the term. The case hits the high court on Wednesday.
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Thirty years ago, Trump's attorney general nominee was turned down for a federal judgeship. And he said strikingly different things at two hearings within a month of each other back then. -
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell took a big gamble in not advancing the nomination of a centrist judge for the Supreme Court, appointed by President Obama. It's about to pay off — big league. -
This was a tumultuous year for the U.S. Supreme Court because of the unexpected death of justice Antonin Scalia. In 2017, a new president will likely mean the court will finally get a new justice.
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After the storm hit in 2005, the insurance company ordered claims adjusters to misclassify wind damage as flood damage to shift liability to the U.S. government and spare State Farm's coffers. -
The high court heard arguments Monday in cases testing whether lawmakers in Virginia and North Carolina weighed race too heavily when redrawing state legislative districts. -
Questions Of Race And Redistricting Return To The Supreme CourtCases before the Supreme Court on Monday test whether lawmakers in Virginia and North Carolina weighed race too heavily in redrawing congressional districts following the 2010 census. -
The Supreme Court tests whether immigrants facing deportation are entitled to a hearing, with possibility of release within the U.S., if they have been held for six months or longer. -
Supreme Court To Consider How Long Immigrants May Be Detained Without Bond HearingThe legal issue before the court tests whether people who are detained for more than six months have a right to a bond hearing. This involves permanent U.S. residents or people seeking asylum.
