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 Justice Department will still send out "monitors" on Nov. 8. But the number is smaller than in the past, and due to a 2013 Supreme Court decision, they'll have limited authority to intervene. -
The Supreme Court is already short one justice because Republicans refuse to consider President Obama's nominee. Two sitting judges are in their 80s, so additional vacancies are likely.
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The Supreme Court justice says her criticism of Colin Kaepernick and other athletes for kneeling during the national anthem was "inappropriately dismissive and harsh." -
The case tests the constitutionality of rules that bar courts from examining evidence of racial bias in jury deliberations. -
Supreme Court Hears Case On Racial Bias In Jury DeliberationsThe justices ruled in 2014 that extreme juror bias could impede a fair trial and, if such a case arose, they would decide then if an exception was warranted. Now, that case has come. -
The Supreme Court hears oral arguments on Tuesday in a case that pits Samsung against Apple — and could have major repercussions for tech products across the board. -
The Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a Texas case involving a murder defendant sentenced to death after a trial witness said he was more likely to commit crimes because he was black. -
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case from Texas involving a murder defendant sentenced to death after a trial witness said he was statistically more likely to commit more crimes because he was African-American.
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Duane Buck was given the death penalty after an expert witness testified that he was more likely to be dangerous in the future because he was black. The Supreme Court hears his case Wednesday.
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The U.S. Supreme Court started its new term Tuesday short-handed and evenly divided just as it was last spring. That's because the Senate has refused to process President Obama's nominee to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
