Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne "Cokie" Roberts (née Boggs;[1] December 27, 1943 – September 17, 2019) was an American journalist and author.
She served on the boards of several non-profit organizations such as the Kaiser Family Foundation[5] and was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on Service and Civic Participation.
[12] Roberts' first job in journalism was at WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., where she was host of its weekly public affairs program Meeting of the Minds.
She worked for Altman Productions and then for KNBC-TV as producer of the children's program Serendipity, which won a 1971 Los Angeles Area Emmy Award.
"[16] Roberts was a contributor to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on the evening television news program The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.
[19] 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.
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.
[25] It was later revealed that Patton Boggs, the law firm of Roberts' brother Tommy, was paid by the Guatemalan government to promote a more positive image of the regime, which was widely criticized internationally for human rights abuses.
[33] Roberts and her mother, Lindy Boggs, won the Foremother Award from the National Center for Health Research in 2013.
[34] 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.