Cokie Roberts

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.