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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Jones has lost control of his media empire to a newly-appointed receiver who will sell it off to pay the Sandy Hook Elementary School families who sued Jones for defamation after the 2012 shootings. -
Under the new policy, all immigrants will be treated the same. But advocates warn that this new approach is a misinterpretation of existing law. -
The Trump administration has stopped a longstanding practice of allowing immigrants who are challenging deportation to do so while free on bond. Officials now say they should all remain in detention.
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The Trump administration says it plans to appeal a federal court ruling blocking the president's attempt to stop asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying Trump had overstepped his authority.
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The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a lower court order that required 15 days notice to individuals the Trump administration is trying to deport to countries other than their own. Immigrant advocates are criticizing the ruling.
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U.S. bankruptcy Trustee Christopher Murray has filed three suits accusing Infowars host Alex Jones of hiding millions of dollars in cash and property. -
A State Department memo says dozens of countries have until Wednesday morning to come up with a plan to address some U.S. concerns, or face travel restrictions. -
A Massachusetts judge is fighting to keep her job after being accused of helping a migrant evade immigration enforcement agents seven years ago. She faces a judicial conduct board on Monday.
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The Infowars founder declared bankruptcy after families sued him for defamation and won more than a billion dollars in damages, but Jones has yet to pay them a dime. -
Foreign nationals with $5 million to spare will be able to register for a "gold card" visa that would give them the right to live and work in the U.S. But details about the program remain unclear.
