From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts (née Boggs; December 27, 1943 – September 17, 2019), known as Cokie Roberts, was an American journalist and bestselling author. 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 and was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on Service and Civic Participation.

She received the sobriquet "Cokie" from her brother Tommy, who, as a child, could not pronounce her given name, Corinne.

Roberts's mother was ambassador to the Holy See and longtime 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. 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.

Roberts began working for NPR in 1978, where she was the congressional correspondent for more than ten years. She 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. From 1981 to 1984, in addition to her work at NPR, she also co-hosted The Lawmakers, a weekly public television program on Congress.

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.

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. 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. She covered politics, Congress and public policy, reporting for World News Tonight and other ABC News broadcasts.

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

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

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

Credits