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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Still Down A Justice, Supreme Court Term Is Off To A Restrained StartStarting the term with an eight-justice court means it could remain short-handed, and often deadlocked, on some of the most controversial, and difficult, issues of the day. -
An appeals court panel upheld a lower court ruling that barred interference with distribution of federal funds for resettlement. The panel said federal law bans discrimination based on nationality. -
No, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Does Not Intend To Retire Anytime Soon"I will retire when it's time," the 83-year-old Supreme Court justice said in an interview with NPR. She also shares wedding advice from her mother-in-law and reads a letter from her late husband. -
It's been eight months since Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly, leaving the Supreme Court short-handed and its future up for grabs in the presidential race. -
The Supreme Court could play as an issue in the presidential election after the unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia left the court short handed.
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The court's refusal to intervene leaves intact a reduction of early voting days that was enacted by Ohio's Republican-controlled Legislature. Ohio Democrats had wanted the "Golden Week" restored.
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A straight-ticket option lets voters cast ballots for all the candidates of one party with one mark. Today, the Supreme Court upheld lower court rulings that blocked Michigan's ban on the practice. -
The Senate is back for its brief autumn session, but no one expects the majority Republican body to move forward with the confirmation of Merrick Garland, President Obama's pick for the court vacancy. -
In a 4 to 4 ruling, the Supreme Court Wednesday refused an emergency request from North Carolina Republicans to reinstate a controversial voting law.
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Ahead of the November election, courts have fairly consistently struck down new voting restrictions, culminating in some big wins for civil rights forces, especially in North Carolina and Texas.
