Legends of Broadcast: Nina Totenberg
You must be a National Press Club member to attend and registration is required.
May 28 2025
WHEN:
May 28, 2025 at 6:00pm
WHERE:
Fourth Estate Room
CONTACT INFO:
Madison Siciliano
MORE INFO:
Dinner
NPR's award-winning legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg, will be the National Press Club Broadcast & Podcast Team's newest guest at is series of "Legends of Broadcast."
Nina Totenberg is recognized for her extensive coverage of the Supreme Court and legal matters. Her reports air regularly on NPR's "All Things Considered," "Morning Edition," and "Weekend Edition."
Totenberg's groundbreaking coverage of Anita Hill's allegations against Clarence Thomas led to a re-opening of Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, earning NPR a George Foster Peabody Award and numerous other honors, including the George Polk Award and the Joan S. Barone Award. She has received multiple accolades for her work, including the Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcasting and the RTDNA Lifetime Achievement Award. Totenberg is also the author of the bestselling memoir "Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships" and was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2023.
These limited-access informal events allow NPC members and their guests to hear the honoree's remarks and participate in an intimate Q&A.
Cost of the three-course dinner with 2 glasses of wine is $70 for National Press Club members.
A cash bar reception will begin at 6 p.m. with introductions and dinner following at 6:45. Our guest of honor will make remarks and then open the floor to an informal Q&A session to end by 8:30.
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 groundbreaking 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. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships.
A frequent contributor on TV shows, Totenberg 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. On a lighter note, Esquire magazine twice named her one of the "Women We Love."
Nina was also awarded The Harvard University Shorenstein Center Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2024, the RTDNA (Radio Television Digital News Association) Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2017, and she was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2023.