Tovia Smith
Tovia Smith is an award-winning NPR National Correspondent based in Boston, who's spent more than three decades covering news around New England and beyond.
Most recently, she's reported extensively on the #MeToo movement and campus sexual assault. She's also covered breaking news from the Newtown school shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent trial, as well as the capture, trial and later death of Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. She has provided extensive coverage of gay marriage, and the sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, including breaking the news of the Pope's secret meeting with survivors.
Throughout the years, Smith has brought to air the distinct voices of Boston area residents, whether those demanding the ouster of Cardinal Bernard Law, or those mourning the death of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy. In her reporting on contentious issues like race relations, abortion, and juvenile crime, her reporting always pushes past the polemics, and advances the national conversation with more thoughtful, and thought-provoking, nuanced arguments from both — or all — sides.
Smith has traveled to New Hampshire to report on seven consecutive Primary elections, to the Gulf Coast after the BP oil spill, and to Ground Zero in New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks. With an empathic ear and an eye for detail, she tells the human stories that evoke the emotion and issues of the day. She has gone behind the bars of a prison to interview female prisoners who keep their babies with them while incarcerated, she's gone behind closed doors to watch a college admissions committee decide whom to admit, and she's embedded in a local orphanage to tell the stories of the children living there. Smith has also chronicled such personal tales as a woman's battle against obesity and a family's struggle to survive the recession of 2008.
Throughout her career, Smith has won dozens of national journalism awards including a Gracie award, the Casey Medal, the Unity Award, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award Honorable Mention, Ohio State Award, Radio and Television News Directors Association Award, and numerous honors from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Public Radio News Directors Association, and the Associated Press.
Smith took a leave of absence from NPR in 1998 to help create and launch Here and Now, a daily news magazine co-produced by NPR and WBUR in Boston. As co-host of the program, she conducted live daily interviews on issues ranging from the impeachment of President Bill Clinton to allegations of sexual abuse in Massachusetts prisons, as well as regular features as varied as a round-up of emerging tech and a listener call-in for advice on workplace survival.
In 1996, Smith worked as a radio consultant and journalism instructor in Africa. She spent several months teaching and reporting in Ethiopia, Guinea, and Tunisia. She filed her first stories as an intern and then reporter for local affiliate WBUR in Boston beginning in 1987.
She is a graduate of Tufts University, with a degree in international relations.
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The presidents of three universities have faced criticism following a controversial hearing last week on antisemitism on college campuses. But Harvard's president still has significant public support.
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Tension builds over comments elite university presidents made at a congressional hearing about antisemitism on campus.
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Pressure is building on Infowars host Alex Jones to pay what he owes Newtown, Conn., families who won a defamation claim against him for spreading lies that the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax.
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There are efforts to change how decisions are made about which books libraries should stock and which section they belong in. Some advocate using a national rating system like the one used for movies. -
The Biden Administration has told colleges they risk losing federal funding if they don't take aggressive steps to curb attacks on Jewish students, and harassment of pro-Palestinian students. -
The Biden Administration has told colleges they risk losing federal funding if they don't take aggressive steps to curb attacks on Jewish students, and harassment of pro-Palestinian students.
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The number of bans and restrictions in the U.S. rose 33% in the last school year, according the the report. Florida had more bans than any other state. -
Forecasters say to expect potentially heavy rains, flooding and high winds Friday and Saturday — as Hurricane Lee churns through the northern Caribbean and takes aim at the Northeast.
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No longer are just books under fire, but also the library administrators, teachers and long-beloved librarians who are defending them. -
Harvard Law School professor and noted defense attorney Charles Ogletree has died at age 70. -
All five passengers aboard the missing submersible owned by OceanGate have died in a "catastrophic implosion," the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed.
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The hunt continues for the submersible that went missing on Sunday while journeying to view the sunken Titanic. "Banging" noises detected by rescue crews have caused them to expand their search.
