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Judy Woodruff

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Judy Woodruff

About Judy @judywoodruff

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

Nation Jul 14

How Trump’s assassination attempt compares to the attempt on Reagan in 1981

Saturday’s attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump brought immediate comparisons to the 1981 attempt on President Ronald Reagan’s life. Judy Woodruff was there that day as NBC’s White House correspondent. She joins John Yang to reflect on how these…

Nation Jul 11

Tennessee church thrives by leaning into hardline politics as attendance falls nationwide

An evangelical church in Tennessee is seeing strong growth as it’s leaned into hardline politics. Judy Woodruff reports on religion in the U.S. and its connection to our political divide for her ongoing series, America at a Crossroads.

Nation Jun 26

Christian communities face growing political divide as religious affiliation declines

More than a quarter of Americans now claim no religious affiliation, a finding from the Pew Research Center. That makes the so-called “nones” the largest bloc of Americans. Judy Woodruff reports that for white Christians, the once-dominant group by far,…

Politics Jun 12

Israel-Hamas war reopens old divisions and reveals new ones among Americans

Far from the frontlines of the war in Gaza that has raged on for the last eight months, Americans are grappling with new and old divisions. Judy Woodruff visited southeastern Pennsylvania to hear from Americans on different sides of this…

Nation May 29

How open primaries and ranked-choice voting can help break partisan gridlock

How the parties select their candidates is a major factor in the increasing partisanship we've seen in recent years. Recently, Alaska has been trying something different. It's already showing results but facing some resistance. Judy Woodruff traveled there for her…

Politics May 15

How the politically diverse Latino community can help moderate U.S. polarization

Latino Americans make up nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population and will be a critical constituency for both Republicans and Democrats in swing states. But the idea of Latinos voting as a bloc betrays the diversity of history, culture…

Politics Apr 24

How a North Carolina community is confronting divisions, talking through its differences

Issues such as inequality, gender identity and education have become the subjects of national debate, with the focus often on what elected leaders in Washington say and do about them. Yet many of these issues play out on the local…

Nation Apr 10

Division in Oregon highlights growing political rift between rural and urban areas

The divide between rural and urban areas in the United States has been growing in recent decades with grievances and political consequences on both sides. Judy Woodruff traveled across Oregon to learn more about that rift for her series, America…

Politics Mar 27

Tennesseans from across the political spectrum unite to address gun violence

One year ago, three nine-year-old children and three adults were gunned down at the Covenant School in Nashville in the deadliest school shooting in Tennessee history. In the wake of that tragedy, a group of Tennesseans from across the political…

Politics Mar 13

Political divides cut through marriages and families in the run-up to the 2024 election

For many Americans, politics has become far more personal, and divisive, than it once was. Now, in the run-up to the November election, that’s creating some friction within families. Tonight, Judy Woodruff looks at the impact of politics on marriages,…

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