Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie
The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR
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A group biography of four beloved women who fought sexism, covered decades of American news, and whose voices defined NPR
Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie is journalist Lisa Napoli's captivating account of these four women, their deep and enduring friendships, and the trail they blazed to becoming icons. They had radically different stories. Cokie Roberts was born into a political dynasty, roamed the halls of Congress as a child, and felt a tug toward public service. Susan Stamberg, who had lived in India with her husband who worked for the State Department, was the first woman to anchor a nightly news program and pressed for accommodations to balance work and home life. Linda Wertheimer, the daughter of shopkeepers in New Mexico, fought her way to a scholarship and a spot on-air. And Nina Totenberg, the network's legal affairs correspondent, invented a new way to cover the Supreme Court. Based on extensive interviews and calling on the author's deep connections in news and public radio, Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie will be as beguiling and sharp as its formidable subjects.
Praise for Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie
“Napoli narrates the origin stories of NPR’s female journalistic superheroes … a history filled with so many powerful moments and fascinating details about journalism, perseverance, and gender bias.”
Kirkus Reviews
[Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie] illuminates the terrifying, thrilling energy of NPR as start-up....The book is a lesson in how the fringe project of one generation becomes the mainstream of the next....Napoli portrays the network’s endearingly experimental, chaotic beginning.
The New York Times Book Review
Lisa Napoli's Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie is an intimate and beautifully told tale of the extraordinary coming together of four women who would help shape a network, the news business, and each other's lives. I feel immensely grateful to these women for all they have done for NPR and for women in journalism and also incredibly proud to work alongside them.
NPR gave a voice to women in news before many other news outlets, and NPR's founding mothers used their powerful voices to tell the stories that explained and changed people's lives. Lisa Napoli impressively chronicles how these four pioneers paved the way for women journalists everywhere.
author of The Good Girls Revolt
Lisa Napoli is a journalist, broadcaster, and biographer whose work explores the people and cultural forces that shape modern media. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she began her career in television and radio and went on to report for outlets including The New York Times, MSNBC, and the public radio program Marketplace, as well as KCRW.
She is the author of several nonfiction books, including Radio Shangri-La, a memoir about helping launch a radio station in Bhutan; Ray & Joan, a biography of McDonald's figure Joan Kroc; Up All Night, a history of the early days of CNN; and Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie, which chronicles the pioneering women who helped build NPR.
Across her work, Napoli focuses on biography and narrative history, often examining the intersection of media, politics, and social change. She has covered a wide range of subjects throughout her career, from presidential campaigns to the emergence of the internet as a mass medium.
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