As Judy Woodruff wraps up her tenure as anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour, she’s being honored with yet another award.
The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) is honoring Woodruff with the organization’s 2022 Paul White Award. Named for the first news director of CBS, the award recognizes an individual’s lifetime contributions to electronic journalism.
Woodruff will be recognized during an awards ceremony and reception Sept. 15 at RTDNA22 in Indianapolis.
Previous winners of the Paul White Award include former CBS News chief Susan Zirinsky (2021), Nightline co-anchor Byron Pitts (2020), 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley (2019), 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker (2018), NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt (2017), former CBS This Morning host Charlie Rose (2016), 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl (2015), former NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol (2014) and CNN anchor (former Fox News Sunday moderator) Chris Wallace (2013).
“The Paul White Award is RTDNA’s highest honor and Judy Woodruff has been a trailblazer in journalism,” said RTDNA Nominating Committee Chair Andrea Stahlman. “She has spent her career holding the most influential decision-makers in Washington accountable—and has done so with grace, humility and dedication to the truth.”
Woodruff has covered politics and other news for five decades at NBC, CNN and PBS.
At PBS from 1983 to 1993, she was the chief Washington correspondent for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. From ‘84 to ‘90, she also anchored PBS’ documentary series, Frontline with Judy Woodruff. Moving to CNN in 1993, she served as anchor and senior correspondent for 12 years. She anchored Inside Politics during her time at CNN. Woodruff returned to the NewsHour in 2007 and—in 2013—she and the late Gwen Ifill were named the first two women to co-anchor a national news broadcast. After Ifill’s death, Woodruff was named sole anchor.
Woodruff is a founding co-chair of the International Women’s Media Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging women in journalism and communication industries worldwide.
A past recipient of the Radio Television Digital News Foundation’s Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment Award, she also has received the Radcliffe Medal, the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University, among others.