Nina Totenberg
Nina Totenberg (born January 14, 1944) is National Public Radio's legal affairs correspondent. Her reports air regularly on NPR's newsmagazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. She is also a panelist on the syndicated TV political commentary show "Inside Washington."
Background
Totenberg is the "dean" of the Supreme Court press corps, has more than a dozen honorary degrees, and an equal number of journalism awards [need attribution]. She has written articles for the Harvard Law Review, the New York Times magazine, New York magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, and numerous other legal and general circulation publications [need attribution]. She is the daughter of violinist Roman Totenberg and the widow of the late Sen. Floyd Haskell (D-Colo), whom she married in 1979. She remarried in 2000 to Dr. H. David Reines, a trauma surgeon and vice chairman of surgery at Inova Fairfax Hospital. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming.[1]
Early career
Totenberg began her journalism career working for newspapers and magazines. Her first job was at the Boston Record American, followed by stints at the Peabody Times in Massachusetts, Roll Call in Washington, D.C., the National Observer (from which she resigned in 1972.[2]), and New Times magazine. In 1975 she joined NPR, where she has worked ever since. In addition, in the 1990s she was a regular contributor to ABC's "Nightline."
Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings
In 1991, Totenberg's report about allegations of sexual harrassment lodged by University of Oklahoma Law Professor Anita Hill against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas led the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings to consider Hill's charges. For the report and NPR's gavel-to-gavel coverage, Totenberg received the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. The same year she also won the George Polk Award for excellence in journalism and the Joan S. Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based national affairs/public policy reporting (the latter also in part for her coverage of the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall).
Al Hunt article
During Totenberg's coverage of the Anita Hill hearings, Wall Street Journal columnist Al Hunt accused Totenberg of plagiarism and, relatedly, for not disclosing the true reason she left the National Observer newspaper. Hunt reported that in 1972 Totenberg used quotations from members of Congress without attributing them to the publication in which they first appeared (the Washington Post)].[3] In 1995, Totenberg told the Columbia Journalism Review, "I have a strong feeling that a young reporter is entitled to one mistake and to have the holy bejeezus scared out of her to never do it again."[4]
Awards
Among her other awards, Totenberg won the Columbia University Dupont Award in 1988 for her coverage of the Supreme Court nominations. She has been honored seven times by the American Bar Association for excellence in legal reporting.[5] She also won the first-ever Tony House award presented by the American Judicature Society for a career body of work and was the first radio journalist to be honored by the National Press Foundation as Broadcaster of the Year.
References
- ^ Warren, Larkin, Good Housekeeping, My husband saved my life!: three heroic men who did much more than love, honor, and cherish., 01-OCT-01. Retrieved Jan. 12, 2007.; and Polson Enterprises, Propeller Accidents. Retrieved Jan. 12, 2007.
- ^ Nina Totenberg in Famous Plagiarists.com
- ^ Albert R. Hunt (October 17, 1991). "Tales of Ignominy, Beyond Thomas and Hill". Wall Street Journal.
- ^ Trudy Lieberman, "Plagiarize, Plagiarize, Plagiarize...", Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1995.
- ^ Nina Totenberg, NPR Biography