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 bidder that lost last month's auction of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' assets had complained that the process was rigged and "fatally flawed." -
The sale must be approved by a bankruptcy judge. Proceeds will go to paying down the $1.5 billion debt that Jones owes families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims who won two defamation suits against him. -
Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton supporters gathered at her alma mater hoping to celebrate the election of first female U.S. president. We tracked down two of the tiniest fans to check back in. -
Ryan Routh, the alleged apparent would-be assassin of Donald Trump, has a complex and confusing past. He spent more than half of his life in Greensboro, N.C., and had many legal run-ins.
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MIT says the percentage of Black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander students in its incoming freshman class has plummeted, tying it to 2023’s Supreme Court ruling banning affirmative action.
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Shafik is the third Ivy League university president to leave her job following criticism over how she has handled campus protests regarding the Israel-Hamas war. She held the job for 13 months. -
College campuses around the nation are bracing for more unrest over the Israel-Hamas war. This summer, student organizers are rethinking tactics, as are counter-protesters and college administrators.
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Despite the decisions by the federal bankruptcy judge, Sandy Hook families are likely to get only a tiny fraction of the nearly $1.5 billion in damages Jones owes them for his lies about the 2012 school shooting. -
Alex Jones has asked a judge to convert his bankruptcy to a liquidation, in order to start paying some of the nearly $1.5 billion in damages he owes the Sandy Hook families who sued him for defamation.
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Pomp and circumstance again fall victim to circumstance for some students in the graduating class of 2024, as protests over the war in Gaza threaten to disrupt commencement ceremonies.
