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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Just three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law creating a 35-foot buffer zone around clinics that perform abortions, lawmakers there are rushing through a replacement.
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A Harvard researcher says teens feel their parents prioritize success and feeling good over kindness — and so they do, too. -
The Supreme Court has struck down a Massachusetts law that requires a buffer zone around clinics offering abortion services. Advocacy groups on both sides of the issue offer their reactions.
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A year after the Boston Marathon bombing, Heather Abbott has adapted to life with her prostheses, including a blade for running and one that allows her to wear her favorite shoes. -
Convicted mobster James "Whitey" Bulger was sentenced Thursday to two life terms in prison plus five years for crimes he committed, which included 11 murders. The 84-year-old Bulger is expected to appeal, but it seems likely that he'll spend the rest of his life behind bars.
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Every victim who arrived at a hospital alive survived the attack. But hospitals say the experience also revealed room for improvement, and they're about to share the lessons they learned at a national conference in Washington, D.C. -
Attorneys for some victims of the Boston Marathon bombings are asking the Massachusetts attorney general to look into the way money collected through the One Fund is being distributed. The $60 million raised by the Fund is being distributed, in large part, based on how long victims spent in the hospital after the attacks. But some victims say they are being shortchanged, because injuries such as concussion or hearing loss are serious, but did not require long hospital stays.
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Suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev was arraigned on Wednesday. Tsarnaev has been indicted on more than 30 charges, including using a weapon of mass destruction in the attack, which killed three people and injured more than 260. He is also charged with the murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier. Wednesday's court proceeding were Tsarnaev's first public appearance since he was captured four days after the bombings.
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This year has been anything but routine in Boston, after the deadly marathon bombings and the chaotic manhunt. But tonight, the traditional July Fourth show will go on as the Boston Pops performs amid bursts of fireworks. While the music and pyrotechnics will be familiar, the scene and mood are different. -
In Massachusetts, what's been a relatively lackluster campaign to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Secretary of State John Kerry is heating up. Veteran Democratic Rep. Ed Markey is running against Republican Gabriel Gomez, a businessman and former Navy SEAL. Gomez is a political newcomer.
