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Page 4 • Cognotes 2009 Annual Conference Highlights • CHICAGO
Roberts Discusses Women In Media
By Kay Ikuta
Inglewood
Public Library
Cokie Roberts, author
and broadcast journalist, delivered the keynote address for PLA’s annual
awards and membership meeting July 13, as part of ALA’s Auditorium Speakers
Series and through the support of HarperCollins.
Roberts
is best known for her career as a political commentator for ABC News and news
analyst for National Public Radio. She and her husband Steven Roberts wrote the
bestselling book From This Day Forward, which chronicles their long marriage
and other marriages in American history. Her latest work is the revised and expanded
edition of We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters.
Roberts
recalled speaking at the 2006 ALA conference in New Orleans, the first convention
there after Hurricane Katrina, and remembered saying then that “librarians
were very brave.” Being an author is very different from being a “daily
journalist,” according to Roberts. Roberts has always been “around”
politics. Her mother, Lindy Boggs, was appointed U.S. ambassador to the Vatican
at age 81 after serving in Congress. “One of the best memories of my mother
remains of my own wedding day. Mother invited 1,500 guests and cooked the food
herself.” Her mother commented that multi-tasking is a made-up “guy”
word for what women have been doing for years.
Roberts wrote Founding Mothers and We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters because she has known so many women in politics. She said we create false myths about political women. “Laura Bush was called prim, but she didn’t know what that was. Was it because she was a librarian? She was strong as she spoke up for human rights in Afghanistan and Burma.” Roberts indicated that both Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton were not treated well by the press and former Representative Pat Schroeder constantly had to answer the media with sarcasm.
