BROADCASTING IS BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF HER VOICES

Cokie Roberts does something few broadcast journalists could manage: a bang-up job on both radio and TV.

And Roberts, a mainstay of both National Public Radio and ABC News, has something else few human beings in or out of the Fourth Estate ever get the hang of: peace of mind.

“I know exactly who I am, and I am completely comfortable with that,” she says. “I’m just sort of a normal person who knows a lot about a few things and a little about a lot of things, and I’m not shy about talking about it. I don’t know how else to say it.”

Of course, being comfortable with oneself never has been a yardstick of a reporter’s success. But after her 15 years covering Congress for NPR, Roberts’ listeners know that she supplements a knowledge of Capitol Hill any senator might envy with an unaffected style that never flaunts her brand of savvy.

Roberts has brought her skills to ABC News since 1988, appearing on “World News Tonight,” “Nightline” and on the Sunday round-table “This Week With David Brinkley.”

As she juggles a late lunch and interview at New York’s Rockefeller Center, her husky voice and throaty laughter are ever present.

“I adore Sam,” she says, referring to her “This Week” panel-mate Sam Donaldson, and she laughs that big laugh. “Sam eats the chocolate off the doughnuts before we go on the air, and leaves these doughnut carcasses. And he eats five of them! All that sugar in his system!”

She is in Manhattan to guest on Bob Costas’ NBC talk-show “Later.” But in her comfortable manner, she has moved seamlessly from the interview to greeting a fan in the long line down in the lobby waiting to get into David Letterman’s taping studio.

“Are you still waiting?” she says, recalling him from earlier.

Recognition from strangers is a TV, not a radio, phenomenon, of course, “and I don’t like it,” she says pleasantly as she orders a salad.

“Actually,” she goes on, reconsidering, “it’s very nice to have people come up and say, ‘I like your work.’ Part of why I don’t like it has to do with having grown up in a political family.” Roberts grew up the daughter of the late Rep. Hale Boggs, D-La., who was House Majority Leader.

“I tell you something very interesting,” she says. “These days, people will come up and talk to me when I’m alone and when I’m with another woman, but not when I’m with my husband,” who is Steven V. Roberts, a senior writer with U.S. News & World Report.

“Isn’t that fascinating? They think you’re his. And they think they shouldn’t interrupt a man. Fascinating.” And she laughs again, knowingly.

But, surprisingly, Roberts reports that gender bias isn’t a problem for a woman correspondent on Capitol Hill.

“Politicians are charming people. They’ve had to be, to get elected. And they’re practical, so all they see is what (organization) is behind you. If ABC wanted to send them a three-headed polka-dotted reporter they’d just say, ‘Have a seat. Care for a cup of coffee?’ ”

She laughs and says, “Or three, perhaps?”