Judy Carline Woodruff is a well-known broadcast journalist from America who has provided news coverage for network, cable, and public television.
She serves as the managing editor and anchor for PBS NewsHour. Since 1976, the journalist has covered each presidential election and convention.
She has moderated U.S. presidential debates and conducted interviews with several state leaders. Woodruff initiated local television news in Atlanta in 1968 after earning his degree from Duke University.
In 1976, she got hired by N.B.C. News as a “White House correspondent,” a post she held for six years. She started working for PBS in 1982, presenting one show while continuing to cover for PBS NewsHour, originally The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.
She relocated to CNN, where she co-hosted Inside Politics and CNN WorldView with Bernard Shaw until he left the network.
In 2005, she departed CNN. In 2006, she joined PBS and NewsHour again. She and Gwen Ifill were appointed as its official anchors in 2013, taking over for the show’s original presenter Jim Lehrer.
She declared in May 2022 that she would leave her position as the NewsHour’s anchor at the end of the year.
PBS Newshour: What Happened to Judy Woodruff’s Ears?
No reports or articles have surfaced on the topic regarding the ears of the journalist Judy Woodruff.
If anything serious happened to the reporter’s ears, media and online sources would have published it on their respective pages. After searching on the social media platform about Woodruff’s ear, there are multiple tweets on the Twitter platform.
People have mentioned Judy Woodruff’s ears in their tweets several years back. But nothing serious has been said, or any health condition regarding Judy’s ears is available.
She is also making headlines recently as she announced her plans to step down as an anchor of the show PBS NewsHour. She informed the PBS NewsHour staff that she would continue to anchor the program through the end of the year before switching to longer-form reporting and undertaking projects and specials for WETA-TV.
The newswoman expressed her passion for her job at the PBS NewsHour in a memo, stating she couldn’t imagine her life without the PBS NewsHour. The reporter has written that she will continue to serve as an anchor until the end of 2022 through the midterm elections this year.
The program stated that information about the successors got released in the fall. But a source acquainted with the arrangements reportedly says Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennett will take over as co-anchors and succeed her. Puck News initially announced the transfer. Since 2013, Woodruff has anchored NewsHour regularly and holds the managing editor position.
She started working for N.B.C. News in 1983, joining NewsHour as chief Washington correspondent, backup anchor, and Frontline anchor.
In 1993, Woodruff relocated to CNN, where she anchored much of the network’s political coverage and presided over presidential and vice presidential debates.
Returning to PBS in 2006, the journalist worked as a special correspondent for the NewsHour. Later, the host got promoted to the senior correspondent. Judy later took a turn as one of the rotating co-anchors.
Judy Woodruff’s Family Background
Judy Woodruff was born to her mother, Anita Lee Woodruff, and father, William H. Woodruff, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on November 20, 1946.
The reporter’s father is a chief warrant officer in the Army. Unfortunately, not much information about Woodruff’s mother is available online. Anita is the journalist’s only sibling. As of 2022, Woodruff is currently 75 years old. The television anchor will celebrate her 76th birthday on November 20, 2022. The newswoman was an army brat who moved around as a child, attending seven schools between kindergarten and sixth grade.
When Woodruff was five, the anchor and family migrated from Oklahoma to Germany. She later relocated to army stations in Missouri and New Jersey, went back to Oklahoma, and spent some time in Taiwan.
Later, Judy traveled to North Carolina before settling in the Augusta, Georgia, area when her father got assigned to Fort Gordon. The reporter stands tall with a height of over 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 meters). Unfortunately, Judy’s last recorded weight is unavailable on the media.
She attended Augusta’s Academy of Richmond County as a high school student. The reporter triumphed in the beauty contest Young Miss Augusta in 1963.
In an interview, Woodruff claimed that her political science professor at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, was the person who first sparked her interest in politics.
After two years at Meredith, Woodruff transferred to Duke University in 1966, where she was active in the student government and a sorority Alpha Delta Pi member.
She interned for Georgia Representative Robert Grier Stephens Jr. for two summers while in school. Still, the reporter got deterred from working in Washington, D.C., due to how women got treated there.
In her senior year, Judy decided to pursue journalism. In 1968, the newswoman earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Duke. Between 1985 and 1997, the journalist sat on the board of trustees of Duke.
She got honorary degrees (LL.D.) in 1991 from the University of Scranton and a D.H.L. in 2005 from the University of Pennsylvania. Similarly, the anchor received an honorary degree (D.H.L.) from Duke in 1998.
Now, Judy is a founding co-chair of the International Women’s Media Foundation, whose mission is to support and advance women in global media and communications.
The newswoman is a director of Public Radio International and the National Association to End Homelessness. She sits on the boards of trustees of the Freedom Forum, The Duke Endowment, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Who Is Judy Woodruff’s Husband?
Judy Woodruff has tied marital knots with her husband, Al Hunt.
The reporter and her husband live in their residence in Washington, D.C.
Woodruff and Hunt first connected at a softball game during Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign for president. Following their initial chemistry, the reporters dated for almost four years before getting married on April 5, 1980. Together with her spouse, Judy has two sons and a daughter. Of the two sons, Benjamin and Jeffrey, Jeffrey has a severe spinal nerve condition, and Lauren got adopted from Korea.
Just five hours after she appeared on television, Judy gave birth to Jeffrey. He got identified as having a mild form of spina bifida at birth. In 1998, Jeffrey became disabled and brain-damaged after surgery, due to which she had to minimize her workload on CNN.
The reporter’s son, now 36 years old, suffers from an illness affecting his physical and mental health. Judy, nevertheless, finds joy despite her suffering and despair.
Judy and her husband have guided and supported this to avoid misery and negativity. They work hard but also try to be content with what they have for themselves and their kids. Three decades have passed since Judy Woodruff began her career in journalism. Although she has previously held positions at CNN, N.B.C., and PBS, she currently serves as the managing editor and anchor of the PBS NewsHour.
According to multiple reports, her estimated net worth is around $3 million. Since Jimmy Carter’s victory, Woodruff has covered every election and contest with vast experience in political journalism. The newswoman has moderated several presidential debates. In addition to broadcasting, Woodruff is a published author of many books.
She is on the boards of the International Women’s Media Foundation and the Council for Foreign Affairs. Also, the television anchor served as a former trustee of the Urban Institute, director of the National Museum of American History, and member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
One can explore the newswoman on her Instagram handle under the username @judywoodruffpbs. Woodruff has accumulated over 7.7k followers and uploaded over 60 posts to her Instagram handle.