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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Tom Brady has announced his retirement from the National Football League after 22 seasons and seven Super Bowl titles.
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After a remarkable 22-year career, Tom Brady announced his retirement from the NFL.
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The FBI and the Texas rabbi who was held hostage are meeting with synagogues to discuss how to protect themselves, as they strain to balance the need for security with their mission to welcome all.
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One of the original Freedom Riders has died. Rabbi Israel Dresner was arrested and jailed multiple times for his activism. He was among those who answered Martin Luther King Jr.'s call.
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The resilience of the "Big Lie" is prompting consternation and creative efforts to reach those who remain adamant — despite all evidence to the contrary — that the 2020 presidential vote was rigged. -
One year after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a new NPR/Ipsos poll shows many Americans still buy into the "Big Lie": the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
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With plans of heading home, some students have now tested positive for COVID or been around others who did. Worried families must decide whether to see their loved ones or risk possibly getting sick.
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Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, says he won't run for a third term. Although he's one of the nation's most popular governors, Baker was facing a tough primary challenge.
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Asian American Michelle Wu is Boston's first elected mayor who isn't a white man. While many celebrate the milestone, others lament that all the Black candidates failed. -
Business owners who rely on seasonal foreign workers coming to the U.S. on H-2B visas are struggling to find help they need for what's expected to be a busy summer.
