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 鈥� most recently RBG 鈥� 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 鈥� anchored by Totenberg 鈥� 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 鈥� 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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Police have long been able to search people without a warrant at the time of their arrest. Two cases before the Supreme Court ask whether cellphones should be off-limits until police get permission. -
In 2006, the Supreme Court said public employees have no First Amendment protection for speech "pursuant to their job duties." But Monday, in a case about criminal testimony, justices seemed dubious.
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Monday the Supreme Court hears about a man who was fired after testifying against a state lawmaker. The case on public employees' right to speak out could impact future corruption investigations. -
The court ruled that police can stop and search a driver based solely on an anonymous 911 tip. The 5-4 decision split the court's two most conservative justices.
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By a 6-2 vote, the Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved measure in Michigan that banned the use of race or gender in deciding admissions to the state's public universities. -
Aereo offers consumers in 11 cities a cheap way to watch local stations that deliver network TV shows. The networks contend that Aereo uses a gimmick to thwart the economic vitality of their business. -
The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday testing whether states can make it a crime to lie about candidates during an election campaign.
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The Project on Fair Representation is looking for college applicants willing to challenge Harvard University, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
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A divided Supreme Court eliminated the overall limits on a donor's contributions to federal candidates and campaigns, while leaving in place the limit on what a donor may give to one candidate. -
The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday about whether the Secret Service can be sued for a 2004 incident in which agents ordered police to move demonstrators away from President George W. Bush.
