Anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff announced on Friday, November 11 her intent to step aside from the PBS NewsHour anchor desk on Friday, December 30, 2022 and to begin work on a two year project to understand better how the American people see their country and whether today’s deep political divisions can be healed. Woodruff will devote 2023 and 2024 to this national reporting project, Judy Woodruff Presents: America at a Crossroads.
The effort will explore how America arrived at this fractured political state and what solutions people envision, through travel and conversations with voters and local and national politicians, as well as discussions with writers, historians, religious and community leaders, and policy experts. As a senior correspondent, she will report regularly for this series on the NewsHour with possible primetime specials for PBS.
About her decision, Judy Woodruff said, “I have loved anchoring this extraordinary program, initially with my dear friend Gwen Ifill. To follow in the footsteps of Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil has been the honor of a lifetime. Now, I am thrilled to be embarking on this new project to try to understand the most divided time in American politics since I started reporting. I want to listen to the American people themselves, in cities, small towns and rural areas, from one end of the country to the other, to ask them about their hopes and fears, how they see their role as citizens, and to have long conversations with people who’ve given these questions careful thought.”
Sara Just, PBS NewsHour’s senior executive producer and a WETA SVP, added, “Judy Woodruff is a legend and an icon. She continues to inspire with her commitment to fair, thorough journalism and her next project will bring all of her experience and skills to the most important story in our country – What is happening in America and can democracy survive?”
Woodruff’s successor at the NewsHour anchor desk will be named in late 2022.
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