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 search continues for the submersible carrying five people to see the Titanic wreckage. It went missing on Sunday. Authorities say the sub's oxygen supply will likely run out by Thursday morning.
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Some libraries are now facing an existential threat: They could lose their public funding over books deemed inappropriate for young readers.
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This year is expected to set a record for the number of book bans by public school libraries, so many people are finding creative ways to make banned books available to young readers outside schools.
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Students at Wellesley College voted this week that the women's school should accept trans and nonbinary applicants. Wellesley's president says there will be no change in policy.
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Prosecutors had sought six years for his role in the scheme to get the children of wealthy parents into universities. He was also ordered to pay more than $19 million in restitution and forfeitures.
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Rick Singer pleaded guilty in 2019 to selling what he called "a side door" into top universities. The scheme snared dozens of wealthy clients, from actors to business titans and big-shot lawyers.
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Families who had their lives shattered on Dec. 14, 2012, are still straining under the weight of their losses — and still pushing for the changes they had hoped would have already happened by now.
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Migrants who were flown to Martha's Vineyard are suing Florida's governor and other state officials, alleging they were promised jobs and other benefits and lied to about their destination.
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Authorities are investigating a package that exploded inside a building at Northeastern University in Boston. One person was injured. Police found and rendered safe a second suspicious package.
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Parts of Boston's subway system, known as the "T," have been shut down for repairs. Just about everyone agrees the fixes are necessary, but commuters are now dealing with delays and confusion.
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In Boston, fans are flocking to the statue of Bill Russell to honor the Celtic who died over the weekend. Russell won 11 championships with the team and was a legend on and off the basketball court.
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Sarah Clements was 16 when she began pushing for stricter gun laws after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Since the recent mass shootings, she says the work is more dire and more difficult.