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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Scalia was perhaps the leading voice of uncompromising conservatism on the Supreme Court. In his 29 years on the court, he achieved almost a cult following for dissents. -
The court limited presidential power to make appointments when the Senate isn't in session and narrowed a state's power to have protest-free zones outside abortion clinics. Here are the implications.
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The court ruled on cases involving some of President Obama's recess appointments and a Massachusetts law that created a buffer zone to keep protesters a certain distance away from abortion clinics.
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The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals called marriage a fundamental right that shouldn't be determined at the ballot box. It marks the first time that a federal appeals court has ruled on the issue. -
The justices unanimously ruled that police must obtain a warrant before searching electronic devices at the time of arrest. The decision has been called "a bold endorsement of digital privacy."
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The court ruled against the technology company Aereo's practice of streaming broadcast TV. It also decided a case involving police searches of individuals' cellphones.
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The court's 7-2 decision gave the EPA the right to regulate greenhouse gases. But in a separate 5-4 vote, the justices curbed the agency's attempt to rework one section of the Clean Air Act.
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The justices unanimously ruled that a public employee who testified about corruption should not have been punished for doing so. Going forward, though, some tricky questions are still undecided.
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In a major victory for gun control groups, the justices upheld by a 5-4 vote a federal ban on one person buying a gun for another.
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In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law may prohibit someone from buying a gun for another person 鈥� whether or not the other person is legally allowed to purchase a gun.
