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Dear friend,
I want to share some news with you about an exciting new chapter at PBS NewsHour, which is produced right here at our WETA studios for our community and country.
As she announced last week on the PBS NewsHour broadcast, anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff is stepping aside from the PBS NewsHour anchor desk on Friday, December 30, 2022 after a decade at the helm. She will then begin work on a two-year project to better understand 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 new national reporting project, Judy Woodruff Presents: America at a Crossroads. As a senior correspondent, she will report regularly for this series on the PBS NewsHour. We are delighted she will continue to be a regular presence for our viewers.
Woodruff’s distinguished career spans five decades in journalism, including 25 years as part of public broadcasting. She has solo-anchored the NewsHour since 2016 and served as a rotating anchor for the broadcast from 2009 – 2013. In 2013, she and the late Gwen Ifill were named co-anchors and managing editors of PBS NewsHour, the first time a U.S. network broadcast had a female co-anchor team. Woodruff, the recipient of countless top journalism awards including the Peabody Award for Journalistic Integrity and the Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award, first joined what was then known as the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, as chief Washington correspondent in 1983. Before that, she has previously reported at NBC News and CNN.
And more exciting news: Sharon Rockefeller, President and CEO of WETA and President of NewsHour Productions has just named Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennett as the new co-anchors of PBS NewsHour. They will debut their first broadcast in their new roles on Monday, January 2, 2023. We know how important this program is to our audiences, and WETA has chosen this trusted team to carry forward the values so vital to this program.
Both Nawaz and Bennett are familiar to PBS NewsHour audiences. Nawaz is currently PBS NewsHour chief correspondent and has served as the primary substitute anchor since she joined the NewsHour in 2018. She has received Peabody Awards for her reporting at NewsHour and previously was an anchor and correspondent at ABC News, after serving as a foreign correspondent and Islamabad Bureau Chief at NBC News. She began her journalism career at ABC News Nightline just weeks before the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Bennett is currently chief Washington correspondent for PBS NewsHour and is the anchor of PBS News Weekend. He has reported from the White House under three presidents and has covered five presidential elections. He joined NewsHour in 2022 from NBC News, where he was a White House correspondent and substitute anchor for MSNBC. Earlier in his career, he worked for NPR—beginning as an editor for Weekend Edition and later as a reporter covering Congress and the White House. An Edward R. Murrow Award recipient, Bennett began his journalism career at ABC News' World News Tonight.
Please join me in celebrating these award-winning journalists who embody our unwavering commitment to serving the nation with the highest standards of journalism excellence. Thank you for your support of this trusted and respected news program as we build on its rich legacy for the future.
Sincerely,
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Jeff Regen
Vice President
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