NEW YORK: In what’s being portrayed as a generational change, PBS said Wednesday that Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz will replace Washington veteran Judy Woodruff as anchors of the weeknight “NewsHour” at the beginning of 2023.
Woodruff, 75, is leaving the daily anchor job that she’s been doing since 2013 and embarking on a two-year reporting project on the nation’s divisions. Her last show as anchor will be Dec. 30.
Nawaz, 43, has been Woodruff’s chief substitute since joining “NewsHour” in 2018. She’s won Peabody Awards for her reporting on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and global plastic pollution, and previously worked at ABC and NBC News.
The 42-year-old Bennett became anchor of the weekend “NewsHour” earlier this year after jumping from NBC. The Washington reporter covered the White House and Congress for NBC and, prior to that, NPR.
You can’t understate the importance of this moment,” Nawaz said. “It is an enormous change for an incredible institution that doesn’t do this change often. On that level, I think both of us understand very deeply what we are taking on.”
More buttoned-down than commercial TV, “NewsHour” reports on stories of the day along with deeper, magazine-style pieces. It was spoofed on a recent “Saturday Night Live” segment as “we’re what your grandma’s talking about when she says, ‘I saw this on the news.’”
The show is broadening its audience beyond the estimated 2 million viewers who watch on television each evening by taking an active presence on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. “NewsHour” gets more than a million unique viewers each day on YouTube, according to Google Analytics and YouTube.
“There are few places these days that cover the fullness of American life, from hard news to feature stories, the way the ‘NewsHour’ does,” Bennett said.
PBS CEO Paula Kerger said the hirings also further the system’s effort to have the “NewsHour” broaden its focus beyond Washington news.
“One of the strengths of the public media system is we have these stations all across the country and we have been talking about ways to leverage that,” she said. There are 179 separate licenses for PBS outlets.
Having two anchors gives “NewsHour” more flexibility to use them as reporters who can travel for stories, said Sara Just, the show’s senior executive producer. Since its start in 1975, the show has used both single and co-anchors, essentially with just four people having occupied the role.
Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer co-anchored for two decades before MacNeil retired. Lehrer took it over alone and, after he left in 2011, Woodruff and Gwen Ifill started as regular co-anchors in 2013. Following Ifill’s death in 2016, Woodruff became sole anchor.
Woodruff, whose television career had included time at NBC News and two stints at PBS surrounding a stretch at CNN, said she felt like the midterm elections seemed like the right time to retreat. She recoils from an alliterative word: retirement.
“I honestly wanted to step away from the anchor desk at a point where I still have the energy and enthusiasm to do some reporting that really matters to me,” she said.
She plans a whopping week off before diving into “America at a Crossroads,” a two-year project examining the nation’s political and social divisions. She plans to talk with citizens and experts of all stripes, hoping to deliver suggestions to improve things.
Woodruff will be reporting what she finds regularly on “NewsHour,” building toward a special at the end.
Woodruff has been in the business long enough to experience blatant sexism and underestimation of women — and has been able to surmount it.
“If I’d had any role at all in seeing one woman, or one person of color who didn’t have a chance, if they’ve been able to look at the work that I’m doing and have confidence in themselves and their future and help them take the next step, I’m really proud of that,” she said.
She’s being replaced at the PBS anchor desk by a Black man and a first-generation American of Pakistani descent.
Nawaz recalls meeting a young woman recently who said she started watching “NewsHour” when she was home with her parents during the early days of the pandemic. Now the woman follows along regularly on social media.
“She said it ‘makes me feel so calm when I see you guys come up on the screen, because I feel like I can catch a deep breath and say ah. I’m about to get some information and I’m about to get it in a way that I’m ready to receive it,’” Nawaz said.
PBS would love it if she tells some friends.
Geoff Bennett, Pakistan’s Amna Nawaz replacing Judy Woodruff on PBS ‘NewsHour’
https://arab.news/455fe
Geoff Bennett, Pakistan’s Amna Nawaz replacing Judy Woodruff on PBS ‘NewsHour’
- Nawaz, 43, has been Woodruff’s chief substitute since joining “NewsHour” in 2018
- She’s won Peabody Awards for her reporting on the Jan. 6, 2021 US capital insurrection
US immigration agent fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis, mayor disputes government claim of self-defense
- A visibly angry mayor said federal immigration agents were responsible for sowing chaos in the city
MINNEAPOLIS: A US immigration agent shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in her car in Minneapolis on Wednesday amid an immigration enforcement surge, according to local and federal officials, the latest violent incident during President Donald Trump’s nationwide crackdown on migrants.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey adamantly rejected the Trump administration’s claim that the agent fired in self-defense, saying he has seen video of the shooting that directly contradicts what he called the government’s “garbage narrative.”
“They’re already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense,” he said at a press conference. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly — that is bullshit.”
A visibly angry Frey said federal immigration agents were responsible for sowing chaos in the city, telling ICE: “Get the f*** out of Minneapolis.” But he also urged residents to remain calm.
The shooting drew protesters into the streets near the scene, some of whom were met by heavily armed federal agents wearing gas masks who fired chemical irritants at the demonstrators.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer began firing after a “violent rioter” attempted to run over ICE officers.
“The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased,” she wrote. “The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries.”
Frey said the woman did not appear to be trying to ram anyone in the video he had reviewed. The city police chief, Brian O’Hara, told reporters that the preliminary investigation indicated the woman’s vehicle was blocking traffic when a federal officer approached on foot.
“The vehicle began to drive off,” he said. “At least two shots were fired. The vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway.”
Trump, a Republican, has deployed federal immigration agents to Democratic-led cities across the US through his first year in office in a crackdown against illegal immigration, leading to backlash from some residents.
The administration planned to send approximately 2,000 agents to Minneapolis, according to news reports, following allegations of wide-scale welfare fraud involving Somali immigrants, whom Trump has called “garbage.”
The identity of the shot woman was not publicly disclosed. US Senator Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, said on X that she was a US citizen. The police chief said the woman, who was married, was not a target of immigration operations.
WITNESSES DESCRIBE SHOOTING
A dark-colored SUV with a bullet hole through its windshield and blood splattered across the headrest was seen rammed into a pole on the snowy street where the shooting took place.
Venus de Mars, a 65-year-old Minneapolis resident who lives near the site of the shooting, described seeing paramedics perform CPR on a woman collapsed next to a snowbank near the crashed car. Shortly after, they loaded her into an ambulance that drove away without its sirens on.
“There’s been lots of ICE activity but nothing like this,” de Mars said. “I’m so angry. I’m so angry, and I feel helpless.”
The deployment of agents to Minneapolis follows Trump’s recent attacks on Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and the state’s large population of Somali Americans and Somali immigrants over allegations of fraud dating back to 2020 by some nonprofit groups that administer childcare and other social services programs.
At least 56 people have pleaded guilty since federal prosecutors started to bring charges in 2022 under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024, announced this week he would not seek a third term as governor, saying he did not have time both to address the fraud scandal and to campaign.
Immigration agents have been involved in other similar shootings during the Trump administration’s crackdown.
During “Operation Midway Blitz,” Trump’s immigration enforcement surge in Chicago last fall, ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, a 38-year-old Mexican national in a Chicago suburb. Gonzalez, a cook and father of two with no criminal record, was shot in his car after agents attempted to arrest him.
A DHS statement said Gonzalez had steered his car at agents, dragging one officer and causing him to fire out of fear for his life. Police bodycam footage obtained by Reuters complicated that narrative, with the ICE agent saying his injuries were “nothing major.”
Border Patrol agents also shot a woman in Chicago in October. DHS said the shooting was in self-defense after the woman, Marimar Martinez, rammed into the agents’ vehicle. But her lawyer said video footage showed the agents hit her car before opening fire.
In December, ICE agents fired at a van carrying two men they were targeting for arrest, leaving one with bullet wounds. A DHS statement said the men drove the van at ICE officers, prompting them to fire in self-defense.
