Judy Woodruff
Woodruff atthe Economic Club of Washington, D.C. in 2024
Born	Judy Carline Woodruff (1946-11-20)November 20, 1946 (age 79) Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Education	Duke University (BA)
Occupation	Journalist
Years active	1970–present
Television	PBS NewsHour
Spouse	Al Hunt ​ (m. 1980)​
Children	3

Judy Carline Woodruff (born November 20, 1946) is an American broadcast journalist who has worked in local, network, cable, and public television news since 1970. She was the anchor and managing editor of thePBS NewsHour through the end of 2022. Woodruff has covered every presidential election and convention since1976. She has interviewed severalheads of state and moderatedU.S. presidential debates.^[1]

After graduating fromDuke University in 1968, Woodruff entered local television news in Atlanta. She was namedWhite House correspondent forNBC News in 1976, a position she held for six years. She joinedPBS in 1982, where she continued White House reports for thePBS NewsHour, formerlyThe MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, in addition to presenting another program. She moved to CNN in 1993 to hostInside Politics andCNN WorldView together withBernard Shaw, until he left CNN. Woodruff left CNN in 2005, and returned to PBS and theNewsHour in 2006. In 2013, she andGwen Ifill were its named official anchors, succeeding founding presenterJim Lehrer. Woodruff and Ifill shared managing newsgathering duties until Ifill's death in 2016. Woodruff succeeded Ifill as the program's sole main presenter.^[2] In May 2022, Woodruff announced that she would step down as theNewsHour's anchor at year's end,^[3][4] and her final day as anchor was on December 30, 2022.^[5]

Woodruff was born on November 20, 1946, inTulsa, Oklahoma, to William H. Woodruff, achief warrant officer in theArmy, and Anna Lee (née Payne) Woodruff.^[6][7][8] She has one sister, Anita.^[9] She grew up as anarmy brat, and moved with her family multiple times during her childhood, attending seven schools between kindergarten and seventh grade.^[10] The family moved from Oklahoma toGermany when she was five years old. They then moved to army bases inMissouri andNew Jersey, returned to Oklahoma, lived inTaiwan for a few years, and subsequently went toNorth Carolina, before settling in theAugusta, Georgia, area, when her father was stationed atFort Gordon.^[10] Woodruff attended theAcademy of Richmond County, a high school in Augusta.^[11] In 1963, she won the beauty pageant Young Miss Augusta.^[12]

Woodruff attendedMeredith College inRaleigh, North Carolina, starting in 1964, initially pursuing a degree in mathematics.^[13] In an interview, she said that her political science teacher at Meredith got her interested in politics.^[14] After two years at Meredith, Woodruff transferred toDuke University in 1966.^[15] She was active in the student government of Duke, and was a member of the sororityAlpha Delta Pi.^[16]

While studying, Woodruff worked for Georgia RepresentativeRobert Grier Stephens Jr. as an intern during two summers, but was discouraged from working in Washington, D.C., because of how women were treated there.^[15] Woodruff decided to enter journalism in her senior year.^[14] She graduated from Duke with abachelor's degree in political science in 1968.^[7][10] She served on Duke'sboard of trustees between 1985 and 1997.^[16][17] Woodruff received anhonorary degree (DHL) from Duke in 1998 and was also awarded honorary degrees by theUniversity of Scranton in 1991 and by theUniversity of Pennsylvania (LL.D.) in 2005.^{[18][19][20][21]}

Woodruff applied for her first job in journalism during the spring break of her senior year at Duke.^[10] She was hired as a secretary at the news department of theABC affiliate inAtlanta, Georgia (WQXI-TV), and began working after she graduated in 1968.^[22] Besides being a secretary, she presented the weather forecast on Sundays in her last six months at the station.^[10][22] Woodruff left the affiliate after a year and a half to move to the localCBS affiliateWAGA-TV in 1970, working as a reporter.^[10][23] She covered theGeorgia State Legislature, and anchored the noon and evening news.^[23]

In 1975, she moved toNBC, where she served as a general-assignment reporter based in Atlanta. Together with Kenley Jones, she covered thesoutheast, an area spanning 10 states, and theCaribbean.^[10] Woodruff was assigned to coverJimmy Carter's successful 1976 presidential campaign for NBC, when Carter was not yet seen as a major contender.^[24] She had already covered Carter's second gubernatorial campaign in 1970 for WAGA.^[25] Woodruff traveled with Carter's presidential campaign until she was taken off the campaign trail halfway through 1976. Although she was not on the campaign trail anymore, she kept reporting about the Carter campaign for NBC.^[26] After he won the presidency and was inaugurated on January 20, 1977, she moved toWashington, D.C., to become a White House correspondent forNBC News.^[27] She continued covering the White House into theReagan presidency until 1982.^[10][28] Subsequently, she was Chief Washington correspondent forThe Today Show on NBC for a year.^[28]

Woodruff moved toPBS in mid-1983, becoming the chief Washington correspondent forThe MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, when the duration of that program was extended to one hour.^[7][10] In addition to reporting on politics, she conducted studio interviews and served as a backup anchor.^[29] Woodruff started hosting the weekly documentary seriesFrontline with Judy Woodruff a few months later in 1984 after its presenterJessica Savitch died in October the year before.^[26] Woodruff leftFrontline in 1990 to spend more time with her family and at theNewsHour.^[30] While at PBS, she covered all presidential conventions and campaigns, and moderated the 1988 vice-presidential debate between United States SenatorsDan Quayle (R-IN) andLloyd Bentsen (D-TX).^[8][23] The debate is remembered for the remark "I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy", made by Senator Bentsen.^[23]

Woodruff left theNewsHour in 1993 to move toCNN.^[23] She was first asked to work for CNN byTom Johnson at the end of 1992, and took the job four months later after some initial hesitation.^[10] Woodruff was teased about this move by her colleagueJim Lehrer: "When I left the 'NewsHour' for a spell to work for a cable-news channel, he always inquired about life at the  'Home Shopping Network'".^[31] In June 1993, Woodruff started anchoring the political talk showInside Politics, that aired on weekdays, together withBernard Shaw, and the international news programThe World Today together withFrank Sesno.^[23][32] Sesno was replaced by Shaw in May 1994.^[33] When the daily world affairs programCNN WorldView was launched in 1995, Woodruff and Shaw became the hosts.^[34][35]

She remained co-anchor ofWorldView until it went off the air in 2001.^[36] In February 2001, Shaw retired, causing Woodruff to become the sole host ofInside Politics, which was subsequently renamedJudy Woodruff's Inside Politics.^[37] During her time at CNN, Woodruff also co-anchored CNN's election coverage and the news showsLive From... andCNN NewsStand on Wednesdays.^[38][39] She was the sole anchor of the 1996 documentary seriesDemocracy in America as well.^[40] She reported on the1995 World Conference on Women inBeijing, and co-anchored CNN's special coverage of, among other things,President Richard Nixon's funeral, theCentennial Olympic Park bombing,9/11, theWar in Afghanistan, theSpace ShuttleColumbia disaster, and theIraq War.^[23][38][41]

Woodruff moderated three Republican presidential primary debates and one Democratic debate during the2000 campaign season and one Democratic debate during the2004 campaign season.^[42]

Woodruff left CNN in June 2005, after her contract expired, in order to teach, write, and work on along-form television project.^[43] She was avisiting fellow at theShorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy atHarvard University in the fall of 2005, and taught a course at theSanford School of Public Policy at Duke University on media and politics in the fall of 2006.^[44][45] Additionally, Woodruff started hostingConversations with Judy Woodruff, a monthlyBloomberg Television program, in which she interviewed people, in 2006. She also hosted the Bloomberg election night coverage of the2006 midterms.^[46] Woodruff continued presentingConversations with Judy Woodruff until 2013.^[28]

Woodruff started working for MacNeil/Lehrer Productions in 2006 on the multimedia projectGeneration Next: Speak Up. Be Heard, about the views of Americans between the ages of 16 and 25.^[28] The project included a PBS documentary series, segments on theNewsHour, a series ofNPR specials, and articles on the Internet and inUSA Today.^[47][48] Woodruff returned toThe NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as a special correspondent that same year, and became a senior correspondent a few months later in February 2007.^[49] As a senior correspondent, she reported, conducted studio interviews, was part of the political team, and occasionally filled in as anchor.^[49] In December 2009, the news program moved to a dual-anchor format, and changed its name toPBS NewsHour.Jim Lehrer, the main anchor was alternately joined by Woodruff,Gwen Ifill, andJeffrey Brown.^[50]

Lehrer stepped down as anchor of theNewsHour in June 2011, which resulted in the news program being anchored by Woodruff, Ifill, Brown,Ray Suarez, andMargaret Warner on a rotating basis.^[51] Earlier that year, the documentaryNancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, of which Woodruff was the principal reporter, was released.^[28] In September 2013, she became co-anchor of thePBS NewsHour, presenting the program with Gwen Ifill on weekdays and alone on Fridays.^[52] It was the first time an American network broadcast had been anchored by two women.^[7] Besides theNewsHour itself, the duo also presented PBS coverage of special events, including presidential conventions, election night, andStates of the Union. In February 2016, Woodruff and Ifill moderated the sixthDemocratic presidential debate.^[53] When Ifill died in November 2016, Woodruff became the sole anchor of theNewsHour.^[7] PBS initially sought a replacement for Ifill, but in March 2018, formalized Woodruff's position as "solo anchor".^[2] During the 2020 presidential election season, she was one of the moderators of thesixth Democratic debate.

In 2017,The New York Times wrote of her performance on theNewsHour: "Ms. Woodruff's measured delivery, with her hands clasped and her voice low, stands as a counterweight to a haywire era of American news."^[7]

In May 2022, Woodruff announced that she would step down as theNewsHour's anchor at the end of the year, but planned to continue contributing to the program as senior correspondent. Her last day anchoring the program was December 30, 2022.^[3][5]

Woodruff wrote the bookThis Is Judy Woodruff at the White House, in which she described her experiences as a journalist.^[23] It was published byAddison-Wesley in 1982.^[23] Over her career, she has advocated women's organizations, and was part of a group of journalists that founded theInternational Women's Media Foundation, an organization that internationally supports women in the media, in 1990.^[27][54] She has served on itsboard of directors, and is part of its advisory council.^[55][56]

Woodruff and her husband,Al Hunt, have actively supported families of children withspina bifida (a condition shared by their eldest son, Jeffrey) with counseling and other necessary services.^[27] The couple helped organize the Spina Bifida Association of America's annualroast, during which politicians roast journalists to raise funds for the association. The event, broadcast byC-SPAN, was held between 1989 and 2008.^[57][58]

Woodruff has also served on the boards of trustees of a number of other organizations, including theNewseum,^[59] theFreedom Forum,^[60] theNational Museum of American History,^[1]Global Rights,^[61] theCarnegie Corporation of New York,^[62]America's Promise,^[63] theUrban Institute,^[64]The Duke Endowment,^[65] and theJohn S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford.^[23]

Woodruff is a member of theCouncil on Foreign Relations and theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former member of theKnight Commission.^[66][67][68]

In August 2023, Woodruff was awarded theKettering FoundationKatherine W. Fanning Fellowship in Journalism and Democracy.^[69]

In 2003, Woodruff was inducted into the Georgia Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.^[87]

Woodruff is married toAl Hunt, a columnist and former reporter, and they live in Washington, D.C., with another residence in nearby Maryland.^{[7][28][88][89]} They met during a softball game between journalists and staff of the Carter presidential campaign inPlains, Georgia, in 1976.^[7] Their wedding took place on April 5, 1980, inSt. Alban's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.^[90] The couple has three children: Jeffrey (1981),^[91] Benjamin (1986),^[26] and Lauren (1989).^[92] Woodruff gave birth to Jeffrey about five hours after appearing on air.^[92] Jeffrey was born with a mild case ofspina bifida, and became disabled and brain damaged after surgery in 1998, which caused Woodruff to reduce her workload at CNN.^[7] Lauren was adopted fromKorea when she was four months old.^[92]

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