1. Nina Totenberg was born on January 14,1944 and is an American legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio focusing primarily on the Supreme Court of the United States.
27 Facts About Nina Totenberg
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Nina Totenberg is considered one of NPR's "Founding Mothers," along with Susan Stamberg, Linda Wertheimer and the late Cokie Roberts.
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Nina Totenberg's father was a Polish Jewish immigrant, who lost many family members in the Holocaust.
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Nina Totenberg's mother was of German Jewish and Polish Jewish descent, from an upper-class family that had lived in San Francisco and New York City.
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Nina Totenberg moved on to the Peabody Times in Peabody, Massachusetts and then Roll Call in Washington, DC.
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In 1972, Nina Totenberg was fired from the National Observer for plagiarism in a profile she wrote on incoming Speaker Tip O'Neill, which included, without attribution, quotes from members of Congress that had previously appeared in The Washington Post.
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Many of Nina Totenberg's colleagues have defended her, noting that the use of previously reported quotes was a common journalistic practice in the 1970s.
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Nina Totenberg next worked for the New York City-based news magazine New Times.
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In 1975, Nina Totenberg was hired by Bob Zelnick to work at National Public Radio and has been there since.
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Nina Totenberg revealed that Nixon-appointed Chief Justice Warren Burger delayed announcing the vote results, hoping to sway his fellow justices.
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Nina Totenberg's reporting of private Supreme Court deliberations was a novel development in Supreme Court reporting and led to speculation about who on the Court gave her the information.
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Nina Totenberg was criticized by many of Thomas' supporters, including Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee.
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Nina Totenberg earned the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting.
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In 2024, Nina Totenberg was awarded the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
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Nina Totenberg contributed to the Jewish Women's Archive's online exhibit Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution with regard to her reporting on Anita Hill's allegations against Clarence Thomas.
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Nina Totenberg played the part of an election anchor in the film The Distinguished Gentleman and appeared briefly as herself in the Kevin Kline film Dave.
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Nina Totenberg's image has been used for an item produced for NPR called "The Nina Totin' Bag", a play on her name and the stereotypical tote bag offered as a thank-you gift for donating to a public broadcasting pledge drive.
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Nina Totenberg has made friends with several politicians and lawyers in national politics, and her personal connections have generated criticism.
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Nina Totenberg did not consider it a conflict of interest since her friendship with Ginsberg was established before Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court.
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In 2020, just after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Nina Totenberg disclosed additional details of the 48-year-long friendship she had with Ginsburg in an obituary.
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The deeply personal nature of their friendship was not widely known to NPR audiences until Nina Totenberg released the obituary.
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Likewise, Nina Totenberg revealed a long friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia after he died in 2016, and she has persistently worked to develop tight friendships with other justices and elite lawyers.
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Nina Totenberg was criticized for hugging her friend Lani Guinier during a press conference announcing Guinier's nomination by Bill Clinton to the post of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.
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In January 2022, Nina Totenberg received criticism for reporting on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic related to mask-wearing at the Supreme Court.
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On January 18,2022, an article by Nina Totenberg claimed that Chief Justice John Roberts "in some form" asked that the justices wear masks during oral arguments, partially due to Justice Sonia Sotomayor's diabetes-related health concerns.
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Nina Totenberg stood by her claim, citing that she did not know exactly how the Chief Justice asked the other justices to mask-up, but he did suggest "in some form" that they should wear masks.
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Nina Totenberg is the widow of US Senator Floyd Haskell, whom she married in 1979.