Product Code Database
Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne " Cokie" Roberts (née Boggs; December 27, 1943 – September 17, 2019) was an American journalist and author. Her career included decades as a political reporter and analyst for NPR, PBS, and ABC News, with prominent positions on Morning Edition, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, World News Tonight, and This Week. She was considered one of NPR's "Founding Mothers" along with the late Susan Stamberg, Linda Wertheimer and Nina Totenberg.
Roberts, along with her husband, Steve, wrote a weekly column syndicated by United Media in newspapers around the United States. She served on the boards of several non-profit organizations such as the Kaiser Family Foundation and was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on Service and Civic Participation.
Her parents were Lindy Boggs and Hale Boggs, each of whom served for decades as Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Louisiana; Lindy succeeded Hale after his plane disappeared over Alaska in 1972. Cokie was their third child. Her sister Barbara became mayor of Princeton, New Jersey, and a candidate for the United States Senate. Her brother Tommy became a prominent attorney and lobbyist in Washington, D.C.
She attended the Academy of the Sacred Heart, an all-girls Roman Catholic high school in New Orleans, and graduated from the Stone Ridge School, an all-girls school outside Washington, D.C., in 1960. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1964, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in political science.
Roberts began working for National Public Radio (NPR) in 1978, working as the congressional correspondent for more than 10 years. Because of her early involvement as a female journalist in the network at a time when women were not often involved in journalism at the highest levels, she has been called one of the "founding mothers of NPR." Roberts was a contributor to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on the evening television news program The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Her coverage of the Iran-Contra Affair for that program won her the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting in 1988. From 1981 to 1984, in addition to her work at NPR, she also cohosted The Lawmakers, a weekly public television program on Congress. Starting in 1992, Roberts served as a senior news analyst and commentator for NPR, primarily on the daily news program Morning Edition. In 1994, The New York Times credited her, along with NPR's Linda Wertheimer and Nina Totenberg, with transforming male-dominated Washington, D.C., political journalism.
Roberts went to work for ABC News in 1988 as a political correspondent for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, continuing to serve part-time as a political commentator at NPR. She appeared as a panelist for many years on ABC News' Sunday morning broadcast This Week with David Brinkley. After David Brinkley's retirement, she co-anchored the program with Sam Donaldson (renamed This Week with Sam Donaldson & Cokie Roberts) from 1996 to 2002, while serving as the chief congressional analyst for ABC News. The two were replaced as anchors in September 2002 by George Stephanopoulos. She also covered politics, Congress, and public policy while reporting for World News Tonight and other ABC News broadcasts. Roberts continued to serve occasionally as a panelist on This Week and work on NPR. Her final assignment with NPR was a series of segments on Morning Edition titled "Ask Cokie," in which she answered questions submitted by listeners about subjects usually related to U.S. politics.
Roberts and her mother, Lindy Boggs, won the Foremother Award from the National Center for Health Research in 2013.
She was made an honoris causa initiate of Omicron Delta Kappa in 1995 from the University of Akron and later received the organization's highest honor, the Laurel Crowned Circle. Roberts was also inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2000. She was also cited as one of the 50 greatest women in the history of broadcasting by the American Women in Radio and Television.
Roberts was a president of the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association.
In 2002, Roberts was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. She was successfully treated at the time Larry King Live (May 22, 2004). " Interviews With Cokie Roberts et al " (transcript). Retrieved on March 27, 2009. "No, no. My breast cancer is gone." but died from complications of the disease in Washington, D.C., on September 17, 2019.
|
|
