Cokie Roberts

Cokie Roberts serves as a senior news analyst for NPR, where she was the congressional correspondent for more than ten years. In addition to her work for NPR, Ms. Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News, serving as an on-air analyst for the network. Ms. Roberts was the co-anchor of the ABC News' Sunday morning broadcast, This Week with Sam Donaldson & Cokie Roberts from 1996-2002, while also 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. Ms. Roberts has won numerous awards at NPR, including the highest honor in public radio, the Edward R. Murrow Award. She was also the first broadcast journalist to win the highly prestigious Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress. Roberts is the recipient of numerous other broadcasting awards, including a 1991 Emmy for her contribution to the ABC News special, "Who is Ross Perot?" She is the author of the national bestseller We Are Our Mother's Daughters as well as Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. The book, published in 2004, explores the lives of the women behind the men that wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, a professor at The George Washington University and contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report, Ms. Roberts writes a weekly column syndicated by United Media in major newspapers around the country. Her op-ed columns have appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and she has also written for The New York Times Magazine, USA Weekend Magazine and The Atlantic. In February 2000, she published From This Day Forward, an account of her more-than-30-year marriage, as well as other marriages in American history. It immediately hit the top 10 on The New York Times bestseller list. Before joining ABC News in 1988, Ms. Roberts was a contributor to PBS-TV's MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour. Her coverage of the Iran/Contra affair for that program won her the Weintal Award in 1987. Prior to joining NPR, Ms. Roberts was a reporter for CBS News in Athens, Greece. She also produced and hosted a public affairs program on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. From 1981 to 1984, in addition to her work at NPR, she co-hosted The Lawmakers, a weekly public television program on Congress. Ms. Roberts is former president of the Radio and Television Correspondent's Association. A 1964 graduate in political science from Wellesley College, Ms. Roberts received a 1985 Distinguished Alumnae Achievement Award in recognition of "excellence and distinction in professional pursuits." She is the recipient of over 15 honorary degrees and was appointed by President George W. Bush to the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. Cokie Roberts also serves on the boards of several non-profit institutions. She is survived by her husband, fellow journalist Steven Roberts, her children, Lee and Rebecca and her six grandchildren.