ISLAMABAD: Another member of the Pakistani diaspora in the US made history with journalist Amna Nawaz becoming the first South Asian American to moderate the US presidential debate on December 19.
Nawaz will be co-moderating the process with PBS NewsHour anchor and managing editor, Judy Woodruff, at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.
Sara Just, executive producer of PBS NewsHour, made the announcement on November 27.
Woodruff will lead the panel which includes Politico’s chief political correspondent, Tim Alberta, and PBS NewsHour White House correspondent, Yamiche Alcindor.
Amna Nawaz is the first South Asian American journalist to be selected to moderate a US presidential debate. 17th August, 2019. (Enoch Chan, Amna Nawaz Instagram)
Nawaz, 40, who is originally from the state of Virginia, has a decorated and impressive career as a journalist. She is the senior national correspondent and primary substitute anchor on PBS NewsHour, and has been with the organization since April 2018.
Earlier this year, she won the Peabody Award for her reporting on the global plastic problem which NewsHour ran as a series.
Prior to joining NewsHour, Nawaz worked as an anchor and correspondent with ABC News.
Her beat covers politics, foreign affairs, education, climate change, culture and sports.
At ABC, Nawaz covered the 2016 US presidential elections, and has reported on President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
She’s also the founder and the former managing editor of NBC’s Asian American platform.
On being an Asian American voice from the largest growing population in the USA, and being the first of many things Nawaz told Jade Magazine.com “I’ve had people make assumptions about me – because I’m a woman, because I’m Asian, because my family’s from Pakistan, because I’m Muslim – but I can’t control what others think. All I can do is bring my whole self to this job, to report the stories as I see them, and try to treat others’ stories with the same care and respect I’d want someone to treat mine.”
