NPR’s Nina Totenberg to Receive University Journalism Award

NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg will be honored by the University of Illinois this week. 

She’s the 2012 recipient of the Illinois Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism.  Totenberg will receive the award Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

The prize honors those whose career contributions to public affairs represent the best achievements of American journalism.  U of I journalism head Rich Martin says Totenberg is "richly deserving" of the prize since "she has established herself as the nation’s premier legal reporter," he said.

Totenberg started with NPR in 1975.  Prior to that, she was a print journalist- splitting time with the Boston Record American, National Observer, and New Times Magazine. 

Her 1991 report on University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment by Judge Clarence Thomas led the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open Supreme Court confirmation hearings. 

NPR received the George Foster Peabody Award for the coverage of the hearings.  And in 1998, Totenberg was named Broadcaster of the Year by the National Press Foundation, and she received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Edward R Morrow Award in 2010.