Susan, Linda, Nina, & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

A group biography of four beloved women who fought sexism, covered decades of American news, and whose voices defined NPR
In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace
still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out
of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a
backwater of male chauvinism where a woman might be lucky to get a
foothold on the ¿women¿s pages.¿ But when a pioneering nonprofit called
National Public Radio came along in the 1970s, and the door to serious
journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it
off the hinges.
Susan, Linda, Nina, & 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, & Cokie will be as beguiling and sharp as its formidable subjects.