Award-winning veteran journalist Cokie Roberts has died at age 75, according to ABC News.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1248940
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1248940
I think cancer may be the worst word in the English language.
Rest In Peace.
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OT. Just when you though a Trumpturd could not do anything more to ruin his reputation…
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This is very sad news. For her family I’ve no doubt, and for the loss of her journalistic voice and her intelligent and witty political commentary.
Was painful too watching that clip of her at the 2016 DNC convention, speaking of the excitement in the arena. Stark reminders that we could have elected the first female president, instead of a conning clown, always bring me down.
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Who now will report Both Sides?
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Cokie Roberts, RIP. Journalism with integrity, RIP.
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In her early years, she brought a gravitas that I always appreciated.
Few know that she was the daughter of Hale and Lindy Boggs, both Congresscritters from Louisiana. When Hale died, Lindy took the spot and served well. Cokie had that all as a foundation for her reporting. Unfortunately, as most journalists did, she lost her gravitas in most recent years.
I’m still sorry she’s gone. RIP
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Roberts was a centrist’s centrist so I didn’t pay much attention to her commentary generally but, even though I considered her a member of the journalmalism team, she could call the bullshit out now and then; e.g., media complicity WRT Trumpism
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She was accurately derided as Queen of the status quo.
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She’ll be missed. Sharp, incisive AND witty. RIP Cokie.
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And then there was this incident…
Some have questioned Roberts’ objectivity as a journalist. While working in Guatemala in 1989 helping poor indigenous Guatemalans learn how to read, Sister Dianna Ortiz, a Catholic nun from New Mexico, was abducted, raped and tortured by members of a government-backed death squad, who believed she was a subversive.[28] 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.[29] It was later revealed that Roberts’ brother Tom Boggs’ law firm, Patton Boggs, was paid by the Guatemalan government to promote a more positive image of the regime, which was widely criticized internationally for human rights abuses.[30][31][32] Coupled with her treatment of Ortiz, Roberts’s personal connection to a paid lobbyist for the Guatemalan government raised questions about her ability to report on the matter accurately.
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Meh. I have a hard time mourning people from that generation. Just look around at everything they built tore down for their own immediate gratification.
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Though not nearly as bad as Woodward, she was part of the “inside the beltway” fabric and really was a Republican as far as I’m concerned.
NPR has been pretty much crap since Bob Edwards was forced out. Ari Green is such a lightweight.
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I don’t think these go together very well. I will always remember her by what Digby at Hullabaloo called Cokie’s law. Its defined this way by Digby:
Cokie’s Law, in which she proved that truth and facts are rarely the issue when it comes to arcane Clinton scandals:
“At this point,it doesn’t much matter whether she said it or not because it’s become part of the culture. I was at the beauty parlor yesterday and this was all anyone was talking about.”
Basically its out there and people are talking about it so it doesn’t matter if its true or not. I don’t think that speaks well to Journalistic Integrity.
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Where can I get me a puffy shirt like that?
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My intention was that they were separate, but related stories. Journalism died quite some time ago.
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I haven’t listened to NPR since early in the 2016 campaign. I feared their work would bring out in me a feeling of uncontrollable rage, and that I would break my hand punching a wall.
I need my hands. I’ll go out on a limb and guess NPR hasn’t improved since then.
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I think of Gwen Ifill trying to make it through the campaign, then learning on her deathbed that Hilary lost.
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I wish her family and her soul well, but yeah she was very frustrating. Chuck Todd has taken up her mantle.
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