Cokie Boggs Roberts '64

Alumnae Achievement Awards 1985

Broadcast Journalist, Television Producer, Author

Cokie Boggs Roberts, an award-winning television journalist, graduated from Wellesley College in 1964 with a degree in political science. She was raised in a political family, as her parents, Hale and Lindy Boggs, represented Louisiana in the House of Representatives for 50 years. Her older sister, Barbara, was the mayor of Princeton Borough, New Jersey, and her brother, Tommy, is one of the most powerful lawyer-lobbyists in Washington, D.C.

After graduating, Roberts and her husband, Steve Roberts, a New York Times reporter, traveled abroad as Steve worked as a news correspondent. In Athens, Roberts began doing freelance reporting for CBS News. Her coverage of the Turks’ invasion of Cyprus landed her a job with National Public Radio in 1978, where she was a congressional correspondent for more than 10 years.

In addition to her work at NPR, Roberts co-hosted The Lawmakers, a weekly public television program on Congress, from 1981 to 1984. She also contributed to the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour on PBS. Her coverage of the Iran/Contra affair won her the Weintal Award in 1987. She joined ABC in 1988 as a correspondent, covering politics, Congress and public policy. She was part of a weekly roundtable discussion on This Week with David Brinkley from 1996 to 2002, and she was a co-anchor of the ABC News Sunday morning broadcast This Week with Sam Donaldson & Cokie Roberts. In 1998, she was named chief congressional analyst for ABC News, while she continued reporting for NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

Roberts serves as a senior news analyst for NPR and as a political commentator for ABC News. She has won several awards, including the Edward R. Murrow Ward and the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for her coverage of Congress. She also won a 1991 Emmy for her contribution to the ABC News special, “Who is Ross Perot?” Her Op-Ed columns have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post. She has also written for the New York Times Magazine, USA Weekend Magazine, and the Atlantic. She is the author of national bestsellers Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation (2004) and From This Day Forward (2002), an account of her 30-year interfaith marriage.

Roberts is the recipient of over 15 honorary degrees, and she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. She has two children and four grandchildren.