So this is Linda and therefore I was obviously going to post it, but I have
mixed feelings about this piece. Cokie didn't protest anything.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/18/opinions/cokie-roberts-ellerbee/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2BBX5fsM9n1iUJE4XCkgKx6s-R6BcUBKVU-DgMqmQhMJPDkdHWYQn7o8U


*Cokie Roberts is gone and I'm angry as hell*

Opinion by Linda Ellerbee

Updated 1:42 PM ET, Wed September 18, 2019

(CNN) It is the late '70s. There is a waiting room, a hall with a wooden
bench, actually. Cokie Roberts and I sit on the bench in the waiting room
that isn't.

She is new to NPR. I am new to NBC News. Because we are newbies, and, well,
girls, we are sent to cover stories where news isn't always new.

Inside the room, a conference committee of US Representatives and Senators
is working out the final bits of a piece of legislation before it goes to
the president to be signed into law. The legislation is the Hyde Amendment,
which will prevent or severely curtail federally funding for pregnancy
terminations.

You know...abortions.

The Hyde Amendment will not prevent women from getting legal abortions. It
will merely prevent poor women from getting them.

There are no male reporters in that hall with us. There are no women in the
room where law is being made. Cokie and I speak of unfairness, something we
live with, work with and protest as best we can. We speak of how we want to
change things -- not just laws about reproductive rights, but how we want
to remove all restrictions on women.

We believe we can. We believe we will. We are still new in journalism.

But the thing is, Cokie did. Cokie looked at her world. Saw it. Researched
it. Reported it. Analyzed it. And explained it.

One of great things Cokie did was to put the news in plain English, force
it to stand up and make sense. She did that better than I.

In the first decade of the 21st century Cokie got breast cancer, which
would claim her life Tuesday. I had breast cancer in the last decade of the
20th century. We spoke about that too, wondered if the fact the government
spent so little money on breast cancer studies and treatment might have
something to do with the fact that breast cancer was primarily a woman's
disease.

We used what we knew to fight for our lives, and for the lives of other
women. We pointed out early and often out that nobody knew much about
breast cancer. We protested. Maybe we changed something. Maybe we didn't.

And maybe that was our theme song over the years. We saw women make gains.
We saw those gains taken back. One step forward, two steps back. Bow to the
left. Bow to the right. Smile, ladies.

This is where I could sing Cokie's praises. This is where I could tell you
why she counts. But there are plenty of other people to do that today, and
I am too angry.

I'm angry because Cokie is gone. I'm angry because in 2019, I live in an
America where women are still being told to go back out into the hall. Go
sit on that bench again. You don't belong in the room where it happens.

I'm angry as hell. Cokie was 75. I'm 75. And all I can think about today is
a protest sign carried by a woman on the day after Donald Trump's
inauguration.

I saw the woman and her sign on the news. Today I want to shout it from the
rooftops. For me. For you. For all our sisters.

But mostly, I want to shout this for Cokie Roberts.

"I'M 75 YEARS OLD AND I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M STILL PROTESTING THIS SAME CRAP!"

But Cokie, know this: I'm not going to stop. RIP on that one, my friend.
______________________________
f <http://facebook.com/beauboughamer> :: t
<http://twitter.com/beauinmaryland> :: li
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/boughamer> :: *work/personal 410/458-5018* ::
partisan/political 443/420-8184


On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 5:40 PM Richard de Give <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Not a good day at all for newsies at the Red or the Blue Network. RIP
> Sander Vanocur.
>
> https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/veteran-television-newsman-sander-vanocur-dies-91-65675917
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 9:11 AM danny burstein <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs Roberts, age 75
>>
>> obwnn:  PBS, NPR, and... the NBC Blue Network.
>>
>> I don't recall her ever being a member
>> of LOSA, but many of her clips made
>> it to the broadcast.
>>
>>
>> _____________________________________________________
>> Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
>>                      [email protected]
>> [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
>>
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