Cokie Roberts' 40-year career was truly in the family business: politics.
The New Orleans native, who died Tuesday at 75, wasn't elected like her famous mother and father, Lindy and Hale Boggs, but Roberts covered politics like few others could, because she had known it all her life.
“My parents were an oxymoron. They were Louisiana reform politicians,” she said in a 2013 LSU commencement address, speaking about her parents’ early political careers. “That doesn’t happen often, but every so often (it does)."
A journalist of Cokie Roberts' caliber doesn't come along too often either.
She began her career at CBS News, then joined National Public Radio, where she worked for more than 40 years as one of their most familiar voices. She added ABC News to her resume in the 1990s, working as a correspondent, commentator and former host of “This Week” alongside Sam Donaldson.
She also wrote newspaper columns with her husband Steve, a fellow journalist, and wrote more than half a dozen books, many on history and women’s history in particular.
In 1993, Roberts joined her mother, nine-term Congresswoman and Ambassador to the Vatican Lindy Boggs, for an interview with WWL-TV’s Angela Hill, where Roberts talked about her career path. Hill asked if Roberts had ever considered another profession, such as becoming a nurse, for example.
“Thank God for the patients, no,” she laughed. “It really didn’t occur to us but I'm not sure that any of us... I'm not sure that (sister) Barbara and I consciously chose… part of that was the era, women weren’t choosing professions, but part of it was we did what we were good at, which turned out to be talking and writing.”
Hill also asked Roberts about her upbringing and joked with her about her mother’s disciplinary methods.
“You really weren’t bad very often because she made you feel so terrible,” Roberts said. “You’d come in late and she’d be on her knees saying the rosary in your bedroom, saying ‘Oh, dawlin’, I’m so glad you’re here. This is the one night I was going to get some sleep.’ So you didn’t do that again.”
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Roberts also spoke about her early education at the Academy of the Sacred Heart on St. Charles Avenue, which she attended before being schooled in the Maryland area. “I can’t imagine doing what I do without being raised by this lady (her mother) and Sacred Heart nuns. They were incredibly influential in my education and upbringing.”
Paul Maassen, general manager of the New Orleans NPR station WWNO-FM, said Roberts, who returned to town often for appearances and lectures, never forgot her New Orleans roots.
“Amid all her activity she made time to support WWNO with appearances and advice over the years. She was a sustaining member and she listened to 89.9 online in Washington. She insisted that the traffic reports were a favorite; the street names reminded her of home and her family," he said.
Gov. John Bel Edwards lauded Roberts for inspiring other female journalists.
“Cokie had a passion for history and was a legendary journalist who inspired generations of women to pursue careers in political journalism at a time when the profession was dominated by men," Gov. Edwards said in a statement. "Just a few months ago, Donna and I had the honor of listening to Cokie speak and it's something we will treasure forever. We will miss Cokie's kindness, compassion and contributions to our state and our country.”
Roberts buried her beloved mother in 2013, and while there were tears and testimonials during the funeral Mass at St. Louis Cathedral (where her father was memorialized in 1972 after disappearing in an Alaskan plane crash), there was also a New Orleans-style second line. "She’d love it, she’d love every second of it,” Roberts told reporter Bill Capo.
Four years later, in 2017, Roberts spoke at the inauguration of Loyola University’s first female president, Tania Tetlow. Tetlow interned with Boggs in her congressional office earlier in her career and counts Boggs and Roberts among her mentors.
“Cokie taught me to balance family and friendships with career. She taught me to have the courage of my convictions,” Tetlow said. “She taught me there were so many ways that women could succeed, the incredible graciousness and kindness of her mother or the more blunt forcefulness of Cokie herself. She was amazing.”
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