Roberts was born in New Orleans.[7] She received the nickname Cokie from her brother, Tommy, who as a child could not pronounce her given name, Corinne.[8]
Her parents were Lindy Boggs and Hale Boggs, each of whom served for decades as Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Louisiana; Lindy succeeded Hale after his plane disappeared over Alaska in 1972.[9] Cokie was their third child. Her sister Barbara became mayor of Princeton, New Jersey and a candidate for the United States Senate. Her brother Tommy became a prominent attorney and lobbyist in Washington, D.C.[10]
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.[13][14] After moving with her husband Steve, also a journalist, to New York City, she found work in 1967 as a reporter for Cowles Communications.[13] She worked briefly as a producer for WNEW-TV before Steve's career had them relocating to Los Angeles. 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.[13] She also moved with her husband to Greece, where she was a stringer for CBS News in Athens.[13]
Roberts began working for National Public Radio (NPR) in 1978, working as the congressional correspondent for more than 10 years.[15] Because of her early involvement as a female journalist in the network at a time when women were not often involved in journalism at the highest levels, she has been called one of the "founding mothers of NPR."[16] Roberts was a contributor to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on 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.[17] From 1981 to 1984, in addition to her work at NPR, she also cohosted The Lawmakers, a weekly public television program on Congress.[18] Starting in 1992, Roberts served as a senior news analyst and commentator for NPR, primarily on the daily news program Morning Edition.[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.[20]
Roberts 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.[15]
She appeared as a panelist for many years on ABC News' Sunday morning broadcast This Week with David Brinkley. After Brinkley's retirement, she co-anchored the program with Sam Donaldson (renamed This Week with Sam Donaldson & Cokie Roberts) from 1996 to 2002, while serving as the chief congressional analyst for ABC News.[21] The two were replaced as anchors in September 2002 by George Stephanopoulos. She also covered politics, Congress, and public policy while reporting for World News Tonight and other ABC News broadcasts.[22] Roberts continued to serve occasionally as a panelist on This Week and work on NPR. 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. politics.[23]
In 1989, Sister Dianna Ortiz, a Catholic sister from New Mexico, was abducted, raped, and tortured while working in Guatemala by members of a Guatemalan government-backed death squad. Her abductors believed Ortiz was a subversive.[24] During a subsequent interview, Roberts contested Ortiz's claim that an American was among her captors. (The United States provided significant military aid to Guatemala at the time.) Roberts implied that Ortiz was lying about the entire episode, although Ortiz later won a lawsuit against a Guatemalan general she accused in the case.[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.[26][27][28]
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. Roberts was also inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2000.[35][36] She was also cited as one of the 50 greatest women in the history of broadcasting by the American Women in Radio and Television.[31]
From 1966 until her death, Roberts was married to Steven V. Roberts, a professor and fellow journalist. They met in summer 1962, when she was 18 and he was 19.[37] They resided in Bethesda, Maryland.[38] They had two children: a son, Lee, and a daughter, Rebecca. Roberts was a Roman Catholic.[39]
In 2002, Roberts was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. She was successfully treated at the time[40] but died from complications of the disease in Washington, D.C., on September 17, 2019.[21]
Ladies of Liberty. HarperCollins. 2009. ISBN978-0-06-173721-3. Continues the story of early America's influential women who shaped the U.S. during its early stages, chronicling their public roles and private responsibilities.[41]
Cokie Roberts; Steven V. Roberts (2011). Our Haggadah: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families. HarperCollins. ISBN978-0-06-207465-2.
Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848–1868. HarperCollins. 2015. ISBN978-0-06-200276-1. Stories about the formidable women of Washington, D.C. during the Civil War.
^Krogh, Peter F. (April 25, 1995). "ISD Report"(PDF). Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Georgetown University. p. 4. Archived from the original(PDF) on April 14, 2008. Retrieved April 11, 2008.
^"Cookie Roberts". William Allen White. August 6, 2013. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved August 8, 2019.
^Weinraub, Judith (July 18, 1995). "BACK FROM THE DEAD; Dianna Ortiz was One of the Missing in Guatemala. She has Only Now found Her Voice". The Washington Post. p. 0 – via ProQuest.
^"U.S. Judge Orders Guatemalan to Pay for Atrocities". Los Angeles Times. April 13, 1995. p. 16 – via ProQuest.