Judy Woodruff

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 the PBS NewsHour through the end of 2022. Woodruff has covered every presidential election and convention since 1976. She has interviewed several heads of state and moderated U.S. presidential debates.

After graduating from Duke University in 1968, Woodruff entered local television news in Atlanta. She was named White House correspondent for NBC News in 1976, a position she held for six years. She joined PBS in 1982, where she continued White House reports for the PBS NewsHour, formerly The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, in addition to presenting another program. She moved to CNN in 1993 to host Inside Politics and CNN WorldView together with Bernard Shaw, until he left CNN. Woodruff left CNN in 2005, and returned to PBS and the NewsHour in 2006. In 2013, she and Gwen Ifill were its named official anchors, succeeding founding presenter Jim Lehrer. Woodruff and Ifill shared managing newsgathering duties until Ifill's death in 2016. Woodruff succeeded Ifill as the program's sole main presenter. In May 2022, Woodruff announced that she would step down as the NewsHour's anchor at year's end, and her final day as anchor was on December 30, 2022.

Woodruff was born on November 20, 1946, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to William H. Woodruff, a chief warrant officer in the Army, and Anna Lee (née Payne) Woodruff. She has one sister, Anita. She grew up as an army brat, and moved with her family multiple times during her childhood, attending seven schools between kindergarten and seventh grade. The family moved from Oklahoma to Germany when she was five years old. They then moved to army bases in Missouri and New Jersey, returned to Oklahoma, lived in Taiwan for a few years, and subsequently went to North Carolina, before settling in the Augusta, Georgia, area, when her father was stationed at Fort Gordon. Woodruff attended the Academy of Richmond County, a high school in Augusta. In 1963, she won the beauty pageant Young Miss Augusta.

Woodruff attended Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, starting in 1964, initially pursuing a degree in mathematics. In an interview, she said that her political science teacher at Meredith got her interested in politics. After two years at Meredith, Woodruff transferred to Duke University in 1966. She was active in the student government of Duke, and was a member of the sorority Alpha Delta Pi.

While studying, Woodruff worked for Georgia Representative Robert 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. Woodruff decided to enter journalism in her senior year. She graduated from Duke with a bachelor's degree in political science in 1968. She served on Duke's board of trustees between 1985 and 1997. Woodruff received an honorary degree (DHL) from Duke in 1998 and was also awarded honorary degrees by the University of Scranton in 1991 and by the University of Pennsylvania (LL.D.) in 2005.

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

In 1975, she moved to NBC, where she served as a general-assignment reporter based in Atlanta. Together with Kenley Jones, she covered the southeast, an area spanning 10 states, and the Caribbean. Woodruff was assigned to cover Jimmy Carter's successful 1976 presidential campaign for NBC, when Carter was not yet seen as a major contender. She had already covered Carter's second gubernatorial campaign in 1970 for WAGA. 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. After he won the presidency and was inaugurated on January 20, 1977, she moved to Washington, D.C., to become a White House correspondent for NBC News. She continued covering the White House into the Reagan presidency until 1982. Subsequently, she was Chief Washington correspondent for The Today Show on NBC for a year.

Woodruff moved to PBS in mid-1983, becoming the chief Washington correspondent for The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, when the duration of that program was extended to one hour. In addition to reporting on politics, she conducted studio interviews and served as a backup anchor. Woodruff started hosting the weekly documentary series Frontline with Judy Woodruff a few months later in 1984 after its presenter Jessica Savitch died in October the year before. Woodruff left Frontline in 1990 to spend more time with her family and at the NewsHour. While at PBS, she covered all presidential conventions and campaigns, and moderated the 1988 vice-presidential debate between United States Senators Dan Quayle (R-IN) and Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX). 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.