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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 Jan 02

Iowa Dispatch: Becoming Better Candidates

Whatever voters think of the political views of Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, they have to be struck by how much each has learned on the campaign trail in Iowa over the past year. Both have…

Politics Dec 29

Woodruff: Why Iowa Is So Influential

As I head to Iowa to cover my tenth (yes, tenth!) round of primary caucuses in the Hawkeye State, I'm every bit as excited as I was in late 1975, when I first flew to Des Moines to follow around…

Arts Dec 15

Woodruff: Why Are Marriage Rates in Sharp Decline?

Some remarkable things have been happening to the institution of marriage in the United States -- and far fewer people are jumping into it. Among young people aged 18 to 24, only 9 percent were married in 2010, plummeting from…

Politics Oct 27

Woodruff: Being Thankful for a Free Press

For the past 21 years, I've been privileged to be part of an amazing organization called the International Women's Media Foundation. A group of women reporters and I came together to get it off the ground in 1990. With…

Politics Oct 19

Woodruff: GOP Candidates Spar Over Illegal Immigration

As entertainment goes, Tuesday night's GOP presidential debate in Las Vegas gave the casinos a run for their money. We heard former Godfather's Pizza executive Herman Cain repeatedly try to deflect attacks on his 9-9-9 tax plan by saying…

Politics May 13

Woodruff: When Politics Is a Family Affair

Watching all the anticipation Thursday night over how the wife of Indiana governor Mitch Daniels would handle herself in front of a large Republican party crowd reminded me of so many political campaigns, when all eyes are on the candidate's…

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