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Judy Woodruff

About Judy

Judy Woodruff is a senior correspondent and the former anchor and managing editor of the PBS News Hour. She has covered politics and other news for five decades at NBC, CNN and PBS.

At PBS from 1983 to 1993, she was the chief Washington correspondent for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. From 1984 – 1990, she also anchored PBS' award-winning documentary series, "Frontline with Judy Woodruff." Moving to CNN in 1993, she served as anchor and senior correspondent for 12 years; among other duties, she anchored the weekday program "Inside Politics." She returned to the News Hour in 2007, and in 2013, she and the late Gwen Ifill were named the first two women to co-anchor a national news broadcast. After Ifill's death, Woodruff was named sole anchor.

In 2011, Judy was the anchor and reporter for the PBS documentary "Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime." And in 2007, she completed an extensive project on the views of young Americans, titled "Generation Next: Speak Up. Be Heard." Two hour-long documentaries aired on PBS, along with a series of reports on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NPR, in USA Today and on Yahoo News.

From 2006 – 2013, Judy anchored a monthly program for Bloomberg Television, "Conversations with Judy Woodruff." In 2006, she was a visiting professor at Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. In 2005, she was a visiting fellow at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

At NBC News, Woodruff was White House correspondent from 1977 to 1982. For one year after that she served as NBC's Today Show chief Washington correspondent. She wrote the book, This is Judy Woodruff at the White House, published in 1982 by Addison-Wesley. Her reporting career began in Atlanta, Georgia, where she covered state and local government.

Woodruff is a founding co-chair of the International Women's Media Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging women in journalism and communication industries worldwide. She serves on the boards of trustee of the Freedom Forum, The Duke Endowment and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and is a director of Public Radio International and the National Association to End Homelessness. She is a former member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, a former director of the National Museum of American History and a former trustee of the Urban Institute.

Judy is a graduate of Duke University, where she is a trustee emerita.

She is the recent recipient of an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the Radcliffe Medal, the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University.

She is the recipient of more than 25 honorary degrees.

Judy lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, journalist Al Hunt, and they are the parents of three children: Jeffrey, Benjamin and Lauren.

Full Bio

Judy’s Recent Stories

Politics May 10

Is It Compromise…or Selling Out?

Tea Party protest in Laguna Beach, Calif. File photo/Getty Images. It's hard to miss one of the main messages of this week's primary votes, and it has to do with the current gridlock in Washington. It is that many voters…

Politics May 02

Another Word About the Women’s Vote

As much as I know women are not all alike, that they can differ dramatically from one another in their thinking about politics (and everything else, for that matter), I keep coming back to this "non bloc" of voters for…

Politics Apr 25

An Election to Look Forward To?

As someone who has long loved covering politics and the people who practice it, I should be on the edge of my seat as the presidential campaign kicks into higher gear and the focus unambiguously settles on Obama vs. Romney.

Politics Mar 07

Why Are Some GOP Voters Just Not That Into Romney?

Watching Super Tuesday results come in last night, one couldn't help but ask, what is it that's preventing Republican voters from showing more enthusiasm for Mitt Romney? Yes, he won six of the 10 states, but in only three states…

Politics Feb 29

Woodruff: Will Independents Return to Obama in 2012?

Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images There's a lot of talk thrown around in every election about the influence of independents -- voters who are registered as neither Democrat nor Republican or who swing back and forth. To listen to some…

Politics Jan 29

Florida Republicans, in Their Own Words

NAPLES, Fla. | Even with the hot lights of the national news media pointed in their direction, the majority of Florida's 18 or so million residents are managing not to focus on next Tuesday's Republican primary. From our vantage point,…

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