Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts (née Boggs;[1] December 27, 1943 – September 17, 2019), known as Cokie Roberts, was an American journalist and bestselling author.[2] Her career included decades as a political reporter and analyst for National Public Radio and ABC News, with prominent positions on Morning Edition, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, World News Tonight, and This Week.
Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, 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[3] and was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on Service and Civic Participation.[4]
Background
Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs was born on December 27, 1943, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She received the sobriquet "Cokie" from her brother Tommy, who, as a child, could not pronounce her given name, Corinne.[5]
Cokie Roberts's mother was ambassador to the Holy See and long-time Democratic Congresswoman from Louisiana, Lindy Boggs. Her father was Hale Boggs, a Democratic Congressman from Louisiana. He was Majority Leader of the House of Representatives and a member of the Warren Commission. After Hale Boggs was lost on a plane which disappeared over Alaska on October 16, 1972, Lindy was elected to fill his seat in Congress.[6] Cokie was the couple's third child. Her sister, Barbara Boggs Sigmund, was mayor of Princeton, New Jersey, and a candidate for U.S. Senate from New Jersey. Her brother Tommy Boggs was a prominent Washington, D.C., attorney and lobbyist.[7]
Roberts attended the Academy of the Sacred Heart, an all-girls school in New Orleans, before graduating from the Stone Ridge School, an all-girls school outside Washington, D.C., in 1960.[8] She graduated from Wellesley College in 1964, where she received a BA in Political Science.[9]
Career
Roberts was a reporter for CBS News in Athens, Greece.[10] She also produced and hosted a public affairs program on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. Roberts was also a president of the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association.[11]
Roberts began working for NPR in 1978, where she was the congressional correspondent for more than ten years.[12] Roberts was a contributor to PBS in 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.[13] From 1981 to 1984, in addition to her work at NPR, she also co-hosted The Lawmakers, a weekly public television program on Congress.[14]
She 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.[12]
While working in Guatemala in 1989 helping poor indigenous Guatemalans learn how to read, Sister Dianna Ortiz, a Catholic nun from New Mexico, was abducted, raped, and tortured by members of a government-backed death squad, who believed she was a subversive.[15] During a subsequent interview, Roberts contested Ortiz's claim that an American was among her captors. (The United States provided significant military aid to Guatemala at the time.) Roberts implied that Ortiz was lying about the entire episode, although Ortiz later won a lawsuit against a Guatemalan general she accused in the case.[16]
Starting In 1992, Roberts served as a senior news analyst and commentator for NPR. She was usually heard on Morning Edition, appearing on Mondays to discuss the week in politics.[17] Roberts was the co-anchor of the ABC News' Sunday morning broadcast, This Week with Sam Donaldson & Cokie Roberts from 1996 to 2002, while serving as the chief congressional analyst for ABC News.[18] She covered politics, Congress and public policy, reporting for World News Tonight and other ABC News broadcasts.[19]
Awards and honors
Roberts won the Edward R. Murrow Award,[20] the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress[21] and a 1991 Emmy Award for her contribution to "Who is Ross Perot?"[22] In 2000, Roberts won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.[23]
She and her mother, Lindy Boggs, won the Foremother Award from the National Center for Health Research in 2013.[24]
Roberts was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2000.[25][26] She was also cited as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting by the American Women in Radio and Television.[22]
Personal life
She was married to Steven V. Roberts, a professor and fellow journalist, from 1966 until her death. They met in the summer of 1962, when she was 18 and he was 19.[27] They resided in Bethesda, Maryland.[28] She and her husband had two children. Their daughter Rebecca Roberts is also a journalist and was one of the hosts of POTUS '08 on XM Radio.[citation needed]
In 2002, Roberts was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was successfully treated at the time,[29] but died from complications of the disease in Washington, D.C. on September 17, 2019.[18] [30]
Books
Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868. HarperCollins. April 14, 2015. ISBN 978-0-06-200276-1.. Stories about the formidable women of Washington, DC during the Civil War.
We Are Our Mothers' Daughters: Revised and Expanded Edition. HarperCollins. 1998. ISBN 978-0-06-187235-8., essays
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. HarperCollins. April 13, 2004. ISBN 978-0-06-009025-8. (2004). The book explores the lives of the women behind the men that wrote the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence.
Ladies of Liberty. HarperCollins. October 13, 2009. ISBN 978-0-06-173721-3. continues the story of early America's influential women who shaped the US during its early stages, chronicling their public roles and private responsibilities.[31]
Cokie Roberts; Steven V. Roberts (April 7, 2009). From This Day Forward. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-186752-1.
Cokie Roberts; Steven V. Roberts (March 8, 2011). Our Haggadah: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-207465-2.
Wymard, Ellie (1999). Conversations with uncommon women : insights from women who've risen above life's challenges to achieve extraordinary success. New York: AMACOM. pp. 254. ISBN 9780814405208.
Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, 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[3] and was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on Service and Civic Participation.[4]
Background
Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs was born on December 27, 1943, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She received the sobriquet "Cokie" from her brother Tommy, who, as a child, could not pronounce her given name, Corinne.[5]
Cokie Roberts's mother was ambassador to the Holy See and long-time Democratic Congresswoman from Louisiana, Lindy Boggs. Her father was Hale Boggs, a Democratic Congressman from Louisiana. He was Majority Leader of the House of Representatives and a member of the Warren Commission. After Hale Boggs was lost on a plane which disappeared over Alaska on October 16, 1972, Lindy was elected to fill his seat in Congress.[6] Cokie was the couple's third child. Her sister, Barbara Boggs Sigmund, was mayor of Princeton, New Jersey, and a candidate for U.S. Senate from New Jersey. Her brother Tommy Boggs was a prominent Washington, D.C., attorney and lobbyist.[7]
Roberts attended the Academy of the Sacred Heart, an all-girls school in New Orleans, before graduating from the Stone Ridge School, an all-girls school outside Washington, D.C., in 1960.[8] She graduated from Wellesley College in 1964, where she received a BA in Political Science.[9]
Career
Roberts was a reporter for CBS News in Athens, Greece.[10] She also produced and hosted a public affairs program on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. Roberts was also a president of the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association.[11]
Roberts began working for NPR in 1978, where she was the congressional correspondent for more than ten years.[12] Roberts was a contributor to PBS in 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.[13] From 1981 to 1984, in addition to her work at NPR, she also co-hosted The Lawmakers, a weekly public television program on Congress.[14]
She 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.[12]
While working in Guatemala in 1989 helping poor indigenous Guatemalans learn how to read, Sister Dianna Ortiz, a Catholic nun from New Mexico, was abducted, raped, and tortured by members of a government-backed death squad, who believed she was a subversive.[15] During a subsequent interview, Roberts contested Ortiz's claim that an American was among her captors. (The United States provided significant military aid to Guatemala at the time.) Roberts implied that Ortiz was lying about the entire episode, although Ortiz later won a lawsuit against a Guatemalan general she accused in the case.[16]
Starting In 1992, Roberts served as a senior news analyst and commentator for NPR. She was usually heard on Morning Edition, appearing on Mondays to discuss the week in politics.[17] Roberts was the co-anchor of the ABC News' Sunday morning broadcast, This Week with Sam Donaldson & Cokie Roberts from 1996 to 2002, while serving as the chief congressional analyst for ABC News.[18] She covered politics, Congress and public policy, reporting for World News Tonight and other ABC News broadcasts.[19]
Awards and honors
Roberts won the Edward R. Murrow Award,[20] the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress[21] and a 1991 Emmy Award for her contribution to "Who is Ross Perot?"[22] In 2000, Roberts won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.[23]
She and her mother, Lindy Boggs, won the Foremother Award from the National Center for Health Research in 2013.[24]
Roberts was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2000.[25][26] She was also cited as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting by the American Women in Radio and Television.[22]
Personal life
She was married to Steven V. Roberts, a professor and fellow journalist, from 1966 until her death. They met in the summer of 1962, when she was 18 and he was 19.[27] They resided in Bethesda, Maryland.[28] She and her husband had two children. Their daughter Rebecca Roberts is also a journalist and was one of the hosts of POTUS '08 on XM Radio.[citation needed]
In 2002, Roberts was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was successfully treated at the time,[29] but died from complications of the disease in Washington, D.C. on September 17, 2019.[18] [30]
Books
Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868. HarperCollins. April 14, 2015. ISBN 978-0-06-200276-1.. Stories about the formidable women of Washington, DC during the Civil War.
We Are Our Mothers' Daughters: Revised and Expanded Edition. HarperCollins. 1998. ISBN 978-0-06-187235-8., essays
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. HarperCollins. April 13, 2004. ISBN 978-0-06-009025-8. (2004). The book explores the lives of the women behind the men that wrote the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence.
Ladies of Liberty. HarperCollins. October 13, 2009. ISBN 978-0-06-173721-3. continues the story of early America's influential women who shaped the US during its early stages, chronicling their public roles and private responsibilities.[31]
Cokie Roberts; Steven V. Roberts (April 7, 2009). From This Day Forward. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-186752-1.
Cokie Roberts; Steven V. Roberts (March 8, 2011). Our Haggadah: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-207465-2.
Wymard, Ellie (1999). Conversations with uncommon women : insights from women who've risen above life's challenges to achieve extraordinary success. New York: AMACOM. pp. 254. ISBN 9780814405208.
