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.
-
Gov. Kay Ivey has signed into law the nation's toughest anti-abortion law. It bans abortions except in cases of a serious health risk to the mother. There is no exception for rape or incest.
-
The Supreme Court says iPhone users' antitrust lawsuit against Apple can continue. The decision divided President Trump's two appointees, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. -
Retired Justice John Paul Stevens Talks History, His New Book And Ping-PongAt 99, the retired Supreme Court justice — author of The Making of a Justice — says "the world is changing much faster than I anticipated. " And it's changing, he says, "for the worse." -
Supreme Court Appears To Lean Toward Allowing Census Citizenship QuestionThe justices are weighing whether the Trump administration can include a citizenship question on the 2020 census. A decision is expected this summer, when printing of the census forms is set to begin. -
The Supreme Court heard arguments on a case examining whether the clothing brand F-U-C-T is profane or could be trademarked.
-
Reporter Joan Biskupic portrays the chief justice as a dedicated conservative who now "has the court he's always wanted" — and she says the law "will likely be what he says it is." -
On a conservative court, Justice Gorsuch has been one of the most conservative voices. But in cases involving Indian treaties and rights, he is most often sympathetic to Indian claims. -
First is unlike any other book written about the justice. Evan Thomas breaks new ground with extraordinary access to O'Connor, her papers, journals — and even 20 years of her husband's diary. -
NPR's Nina Totenberg is headed to the Academy Awards this weekend. She appears in a documentary about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, RBG.
-
Justice Ginsburg Appears Strong In First Appearance At Supreme Court This YearThe justice has been recovering at home since late December. She missed January's oral argument days but participated in those 11 cases based on written briefs and transcripts of the arguments.
