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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Some school administrators are being criticized for cracking down on students rallying for gun control, but many colleges are sending them messages of support. -
The nation's dairy farmers are facing their fourth year of depressed milk prices. The outlook is so bleak, it's increased worries about farmer suicides. One recent outreach effort drew criticism. -
The Patriots' well-established reputation for winning has taught kids to dream big and believe that anything is possible. But is it possible to have too much of a good thing? -
In the old days, the Catholic Church was almighty and the cardinal was closer to king. The sexual abuse scandal and church's rigidity on social issues changed that. -
Once considered among the most influential prelates in America, the archbishop was forced to resign amid the church's growing sex abuse scandal, which indelibly stained his reputation. -
Many employees feel that when it comes to sexual harassment claims, human resources departments work "for the company, rather than for the employees." -
In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal, some states are considering barring nondisclosure agreements in the settlement of claims.
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New federal guidelines for handling allegations of sexual assault have left many school administrators either vowing to maintain current policies or scrambling to figure out what to do. -
College and university administrators are increasingly open to the concept of "restorative justice," becoming less dismissive of the idea that it's too soft on sexual assault. -
College students and administrators around the nation are trying to figure out how to best respond to a spike in white supremacist activity on campuses.
