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Cokie Roberts

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Not to be confused with Kyoki Roberts.
Cokie Roberts
Roberts at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2017
Born
Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs

(1943-12-27)December 27, 1943
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
DiedSeptember 17, 2019(2019-09-17) (aged 75)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
NationalityUnited States
Alma materWellesley College
Occupation(s)Journalist, author
Employer(s)NPR, ABC, PBS
Known forJournalist, author, pundit, television
TitleContributing Senior News Analyst
Spouse
​
(m. 1966)​
ChildrenRebecca Roberts
Lee Roberts
Parent(s)Hale Boggs
Lindy Boggs
RelativesBarbara Boggs Sigmund (Sister, deceased)
Tommy Boggs (Brother, deceased)
William C. C. Claiborne (ancestor)
DeLesseps Story Morrison (second cousin, once removed)

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] She was the couple's third child and eldest daughter. 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 the 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]

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.[15] 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.[16] She covered politics, Congress and public policy, reporting for World News Tonight and other ABC News broadcasts.[17]

Awards and honors

Roberts won the Edward R. Murrow Award,[18] the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress[19] and a 1991 Emmy Award for her contribution to "Who is Ross Perot?"[20] In 2000, Roberts won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.[21]

She and her mother, Lindy Boggs, won the Foremother Award from the National Center for Health Research in 2013.[22]

Roberts was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2000.[23][24] She was also cited as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting by the American Women in Radio and Television.[25]

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.[26] They resided in Bethesda, Maryland.[27] 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.

In 2002, Roberts was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was successfully treated at the time,[28] but died from complications of the disease in Washington, D.C. on September 17, 2019.[16] [29]

Criticism

Some have questioned Roberts's objectivity as a journalist. 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.[30] 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.[31] It was later revealed that her brother Tom Boggs's law firm, Patton Boggs, was paid by the Guatemalan government to promote a more positive image of the regime, which was widely criticized internationally for human rights abuses.[32][33][34] Coupled with her treatment of Ortiz, Roberts's personal connection to a paid lobbyist for the Guatemalan government raised questions about her ability to report on the matter accurately.

The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting criticized Roberts for what they describe as favoring corporate interests over working people's. As an example, FAIR notes that during a 1992 interview with Al Gore, Roberts called for cuts in Medicare and Social Security, but suggested no cuts to the military budget.[35] Similarly, representative Alan Grayson criticized Roberts's support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, which Grayson argues would cost the United States manufacturing jobs and worsen the United States' already large trade deficit, which has grown steadily since the passage of similar trade deals like NAFTA in 1994.[36] Grayson also noted that one of the chief lobbying groups pushing for TPP was Roberts's brother's law firm, Patton Boggs.

Books

  • Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868. HarperCollins. 14 April 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. 13 April 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. 13 October 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.[37]
  • Cokie Roberts; Steven V. Roberts (7 April 2009). From This Day Forward. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-186752-1.
  • Cokie Roberts; Steven V. Roberts (8 March 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.

References

  1. ^ Roberts, Cokie (1993-03-08). "Private Video". Charlie Rose (video interview). Interviewed by Charlie Rose. PBS. Archived from the original on 2014-07-20. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
  2. ^ Cowles, Gregory (2015-04-24). "Inside the List". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
  3. ^ "Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation – Board of Trustees". Archived from the original on 2010-03-04. Retrieved 2010-03-01.
  4. ^ President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. "Meet the Council Members". USA Freedom Corps. www.whitehouse.gov. Archived from the original on 2008-04-11. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
  5. ^ "Cokie Roberts". History, Art & Archives. U.S. House of Representatives. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
  6. ^ Horowitz, Jason (August 15, 2010). "Alaska plane crash a painful reminder for families of Boggs and Begich". The Washington Post.
  7. ^ "Tommy Boggs, influential lobbyist dies; son of Congresswoman Boggs". The New Orleans Advocate. September 15, 2014.
  8. ^ Stone Ridge School. "Alumnae Exellence". Archived from the original on 2008-05-16. Retrieved 2008-04-11. Cokie Boggs Roberts '60
  9. ^ Wellesley College. "Notable Wellesley College Alumnae". Retrieved 2008-04-10.
  10. ^ Political Commentators in the United States in the 20th Century. Greenwood Publishing Group. 1997. ISBN 0313295859.
  11. ^ "Cokie Roberts Bio, Husband, Father and Net worth". www.networthbio.com. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
  12. ^ a b "Cokie Roberts, Pioneering Journalist Who Helped Shape NPR, Dies At 75". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-09-17.
  13. ^ Krogh, Peter F. (1995-04-25). "ISD Report" (PDF). Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Georgetown University. p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-04-14. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
  14. ^ "Cokie Roberts". William Allen White. 2013-08-06. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
  15. ^ Berg, Zach. "Cokie Roberts' University of Iowa lecture postponed". Iowa City Press-Citizen. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
  16. ^ a b Legendary journalist and political commentator Cokie Roberts dies at 75
  17. ^ News, A. B. C. "Author Profile". ABC News. Retrieved 2019-08-08. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  18. ^ "Recipients of the Edward R. Murrow Award". Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Archived from the original on 2008-04-16. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
  19. ^ "Everett McKinley Dirksen Awards for Distinguished Reporting of Congress". National Press Foundation. Archived from the original on 2009-01-27. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
  20. ^ NPR. "Cokie Roberts, NPR Biography". Retrieved April 11, 2008.
  21. ^ Arizona State University. "Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication". Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  22. ^ "Foremother and Health Policy Hero Awards Luncheon". center4research.org. May 7, 2018. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  23. ^ Malone, Michael (17 September 2019). "Cokie Roberts Has Died at 75". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  24. ^ "The Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame". Broadcasting & Cable. 16 March 2018. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  25. ^ "Cokie Roberts". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
  26. ^ Roberts, Cokie; Roberts, Steven (2000-02-28). "A conversation with Cokie & Steve Roberts". Charlie Rose (Interview). Interviewed by Charlie Rose. PBS. Archived from the original on 2008-09-07. Retrieved 2008-05-20. {{cite interview}}: Unknown parameter |subjectlink2= ignored (|subject-link2= suggested) (help)
  27. ^ Strauss, Alix (2017-12-26). "Cokie and Steven Roberts: A Half-Century of Changing Together". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
  28. ^ 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."
  29. ^ "Cokie Roberts Wiki (Dead), Age, Bio, Husband, Kids, Net Worth, Family".
  30. ^ Weinraub, Judith. "BACK FROM THE DEAD; Dianna Ortiz was One of the Missing in Guatemala. She has Only Now found Her Voice." The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext): 0. Jul 18 1995. ProQuest. Web. 9 June 2014 .
  31. ^ "U.S. Judge Orders Guatemalan to Pay for Atrocities." Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext): 16. Apr 13 1995. ProQuest. Web. 9 June 2014.
  32. ^ Julie Gozon. "The Torturers' Lobby." Multinational Monitor. April 5, 1993. Accessed June 9, 2014.
  33. ^ Stein, Jeff (May 22, 1996). "The Self-Inflicted Wounds Of Colby's CIA". The Seattle Times. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  34. ^ Sherman, John (2000). Latin America in Crisis. Oxford: Westview Press. p. 111. ISBN 0-8133-3540X.
  35. ^ Martin Lee and Jeff Cohen. "NPR and Cokie Roberts." FAIR.org. April 1, 1993. Accessed June 9, 2014. http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/npr-and-cokie-roberts/
  36. ^ Alan Grayson."Cokie Roberts Attacks Us: This is How DC Works." Alan Grayson's E-mails. March 29th, 2014. Accessed June 9, 2014. http://alangraysonemails.tumblr.com/post/81102491736/cokie-roberts-attacks-us-this-is-how-dc-works
  37. ^ "American History Book Review: Ladies of Liberty". HistoryNet. 2018-05-07. Retrieved 2019-08-08.

External sources

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cokie Roberts.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Cokie Roberts.
Media offices
Preceded by This Week co-anchor with Sam Donaldson
December 15, 1996 – September 8, 2002 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cokie_Roberts&oldid=916216199"