ARLINGTON, Va.—Anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff has announced 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”.

“I have loved anchoring this extraordinary program, initially with my dear friend Gwen Ifill,” Woodruff said in announcing her decision. “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.”

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.

Woodruff’s successor at the NewsHour anchor desk will be named in late 2022.

PBS NewsHour’s average nightly audience in Q3 2022 (July – September 2022) totaled nearly 2 million persons. NewsHour’s average monthly digital audience for the same period topped 25M persons, while video views totaled 45.9 million and social reach surpassed 13 million.

The 2021 Erdos & Morgan Opinion Leaders survey ranked NewsHour as the #1 most Objective, Credible, and Current media organization, while for the 19th year in a row, Americans rank PBS the most-trusted institution.

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 the 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, serving until 1993 in that capacity. She has previously reported at NBC News and CNN.

Accolades for Woodruff poured in from a variety of sources and people. 

In a statement Patrick Butler, president and chief executive officer of America’s Public Television Stations (APTS), said “America’s Public Television Stations join her legion of fans and admirers in thanking Judy Woodruff for her decades of exemplary journalism, her outstanding service to public television and her inspiring standard of personal integrity that has made Judy such a widely trusted figure through so many years of national turmoil and division.”

“Her leadership of the PBS NewsHour, first in partnership with Gwen Ifill and for the past several years as sole anchor, has protected and enhanced public television’s reputation for accuracy, responsibility and civility in covering news and public affairs,” he added. “It has been my personal privilege to know Judy for more than 40 years, and there is no one I admire more.”

“Judy Woodruff is a legend and an icon,” said Sara Just, PBS NewsHour’s senior executive producer and a WETA senior vice president. “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?”

“A consummate professional and cherished colleague, Judy is the embodiment of journalism’s highest ideals,” Sharon Percy Rockefeller, WETA president and CEO and president of NewsHour Productions, noted. “We are extraordinarily grateful that she will continue to report with precision and insight on those issues that help us better understand our country and our world. We look forward to this next chapter in her vital work on behalf of the public.”

PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger said: “Judy is an exceptional journalist, whose impartial reporting and integrity continue to set the standard for excellence. Judy is a trusted voice when trust is so very important, and we are thrilled that she will continue to serve audiences on PBS.”

Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said: “Throughout her long and extraordinary career, Judy Woodruff has earned the public’s trust with her even-handed interviews and commitment to the facts. Her journalistic excellence has been recognized many times, most recently in September, when she received the Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement in television news. Her commitment to civil discussion set the tone for the PBS NewsHour and for all public media journalists. I wish her well in her new role.”

WASHINGTON—Judy Woodruff, award-winning anchor and managing editor of “PBS NewsHour,” addressed the challenges of presenting a news program at a Government Video Expo keynote conversation with Paul McLane, managing director of content for Future US.

Woodruff was asked about maintaining integrity and credibility in today’s media climate where the perception of the American public is that the news is biased, fake or opinionated. She said the best way to combat that was “to do the best job we can to cover the news; to make sure we get our facts straight as best we can; to admit it when we make a mistake or when we find out some information we had wasn’t right; correct it as quickly as we can; and to be transparent about what we’re doing and how we’re gathering the news.

“We’ve got to be much better about separating out our own views as we share news on the air and in writing because we do run the risk of hurting our credibility. And in the end, all we really have is our credibility. If the people can’t trust what we’re reporting, if they can’t believe us, then we don’t really have value anymore. So that is the most precious thing we have and we have to guard that,” she said.

THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Woodruff discussed the difficulties of preparing for each day’s program and praised the “PBS NewsHour” team. How much time do you spend on a particular piece of news? Should that be a topic covered that day? It is a day-long debate that the staff works on together to figure it out. And a final program can be completely scrapped for late-breaking news.

“It’s an ongoing conversation about what matters,” said Woodruff. “Every day it’s a discussion. Do we run three minutes or 90 seconds? Did we run the story last night? Can we do it better tomorrow night when there might be a more important guest available? We’re including these taped pieces that we’ve worked on for weeks and weeks at the same time we’re covering breaking news.

It’s a constant judgment call and decisions are being made right up until the time to air, according to Woodruff. “Sometimes there is a complete show prepared to go on the air and some late news causes you to throw the whole show out and start over. You have to be flexible,” she said. “Fortunately, I work with an amazing, flexible team of smart people.”

Today’s viewers have so many choices in how they receive their news. As Woodruff pointed out, in addition to the traditional broadcast networks, consumers also get their news from cable channels and social media.

“What that has meant for us at ‘PBS NewsHour’ is that, yes, we are still a traditional news program,” Woodruff said, “but we are also a place that is constantly thinking about how we reach people today where they are… Therefore, we are working on streaming; we work with Apple News; we work with Facebook; we work with so many of the folks who are digitally so far ahead of where we were when we just did television.

“Frankly, [‘PBS NewsHour’ has] an audience that has exploded in size in the last few years due to the interest in news,” she continued. “We have that legacy audience that we are bringing along with us, but at the same time we are reaching people through so many other ways that people couldn’t even imagine a few years ago.”

GETTING YOUR START

Woodruff didn’t actually plan to go into journalism as a career, having spent time as an intern on Capitol Hill. When she was told that Washington didn’t take women seriously, her professor suggested she cover politics as a reporter. After some entry-level newsroom positions and a brief stint as a weather girl, she was offered the position as a reporter covering the Georgia State Capitol and Atlanta politics.

“I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” she said.

A teacher in the audience brought up the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Lab program, in which her students participate. The labs are classrooms, after-school programs and clubs that produce original reports about how national and global issues affect local communities.

“The Student Reporting Lab is something I’m so proud of,” said Woodruff. “It’s one of my proudest things about the ‘PBS NewsHour.’ We work with high schools across the country, I think in all 50 states now. What the students have come up with will just blow you away. They see things that the rest of us don’t see.”

Asked about advice she could share as they teach students to maintain quality and integrity, but still keep them excited about telling stories that matter, Woodruff stressed the importance of values.

“In terms of what you give them, I think you give them the ability to imagine and create the news in the way they are conceiving it. At the same time you teach them the important values; the importance of getting your facts right; of talking to all the people involved. And of course, talk to them about doing quality work in the technical side of it. You may have the greatest story in the world, but if you can’t convey it, if it isn’t lit properly or if there’s no sound, you’ve got a problem. Teaching them values at the same time you’re teaching them the skills, is all matters.”

WASHINGTON—The Government Video Expo, held Nov. 27-29, has an image of the U.S. Capitol building in its logo, but the reality on the floor is bigger than one building or just the federal government market alone. Indeed, a glance at attendee show badges on the exhibition floor or at the conference shows an eclectic mix of media professionals from many arenas.

While attendees included personnel from local, state and federal governments and all the agencies and contractors within that leviathan, this base was joined by representatives from state and local emergency personnel, defense-related contractors, educational institutions, houses of worship, and plenty of regional production types and broadcasters.

The conference schedule also reflected this. While many presentations and speakers were quite government-specific, broader topics such as live streaming, LED lighting advancements, SMPTE 2110, and high dynamic range video appealed to many modern media professionals.

TOPICS AND TRENDS

The SMPTE ST 2110 Professional Media Over Managed IP Networks suite of standards has been the hot topic at trade shows of late, and it was on the minds of many at GV Expo. The importance of the new standard was reflected in the addition of the day-long SMPTE in DC: Essential Technology Advances for Media Pros Conference, which attracted a number of local broadcast and media professionals eager to dig deep into the implications of IP on their media operations.

On the exhibit floor, the big buzz words were 4K, UHD and IPTV, according to Tommy Goodson, president of AudioVideo BrandBuilder (AVBB) Corp. “What we’re hearing at this show in particular is a lot about IPTV, with 2110 on the agenda … everybody who has come by is preparing for 2110.”

AVBB—a master distributor and manufacturer rep primarily for test and measurement specialist Phabrix and streaming company Teracue—said it was seeing great interest in the 2110-friendly Phabrix line, including the Sx-TAG model and the Qx IP, a fully flexible 2110 rasterizer.

Also popular was Teracue’s iCUE Grid Video Wall, is an IP Video Wall Presenter for multiple content sources within the video wall. It allows complete on-the-fly control over visualized live and/or on-demand content in any resolution.

AR/VR was present on the exhibition floor within products and at the conference, but the technology is a bit less in-your-face at trade shows now. The same can be said for artificial intelligence, which also had a decent presence on the conference schedule, but was not plastered on every booth on the exhibition floor as has been seen at events over the last few years. This may reflect the technology maturation, as AI or AR/VR are now established products or part of established products.

An example is Quantum’s StorNext media workflow file system. More than a year ago the company had announced it would offer Veritone Inc.'s multi-engine AI platform in a StorNext-managed environment. At GV Expo, the incorporation was a reality and AI is now just part of an overall system. There were no flashy robots on display representing the brave new world of AI, but representatives from Veritone did attend Day One of the show.

StorNext has applications across broadcast, security, defense and other environments that generate lots of data that needs to be evaluated and used. NewTek’s Tricaster multicamera production system also has a broad range of applications. It was on show at the booth of Washington Professional Systems, a dealer/integrator from nearby Wheaton, Md., that is also a NewTek Elite Dealer selling the systems across several market areas.

“The Tricaster product line is versatile enough that it is not just a broadcast switcher, there is so much more under the hood that allows it to be used in many AV environments,” said Jeremy Morris, Sr. Engineer & Certified Tricaster Operator with WPS. WPS’s booth also demonstrated products from Crestron, Christie and others.

WPS also had Sony broadcast and robotic cameras on hand, but the media world has seen a merging of the consumer and professional areas over the last several decades, so it makes sense that Sony had its own consumer electronics presence at the show as well. Highlights at this stand included still cameras capable of shooting some impressive video, and high end consumer camcorders such as the FS5 Mk II and the FS7 Mk II, both of which can shoot in 4K.

Sony professional cameras, along with units from Hitachi and JVC, were also present at the large, central booth of Digital Video Group (DVG), a supplier and system integrator of broadcast and production systems.

Alex Martin, DVG CEO, said the company was looking to expand its government business with its offerings, which also included asset management and shared storage from Avid, bonded cellular transmission units from LiveU, and more. Martin said show trends that cut across customers included the real need for 4K and preparing for SMPTE 2110.

PRODUCTION AS BREAD AND BUTTER

Whatever the resolution of the video is, and whether it is sent around a facility as an SDI stream or as an IP packet, production needs will always include camera support and lighting. These needs were front-and-center at Vitec.

On display was the Vinten flowtech 75 set of two-stage carbon fiber tripod legs with a removable mid-level spreader, rubber feet, and a 44-pound payload. This established unit was joined by the flowtech 100, which was only launched a few months ago. Compatible with all major 100 mm fluid heads, flowtech100 supports a payload of up to 66 pounds, making it ideal for heavy-duty ENG/EFP and a wide range of wildlife, commercial, and documentary productions.

Joseph Teodosio, Training & Product Specialist for Vitec, said the first day of the show drew a nice mix of local TV stations, government and military and house of worship (HOW) customers: “The LitePanels Gemini has been a real draw with its very high quality light, and the new flowtech 100 is also attracting people.”

Greg Smalfelt, senior cable television engineer, Communications Production Division, and Josh Bass, cable TV engineer, both with Fairfax County, Va.’s Channel 16, came to see the 100. “We’re an existing customer but we wanted to see the 100 for our bigger cameras, and get some questions answered,” said Smalfelt.

Panasonic was also out in force with a range of production kit for needs ranging from broadcast to HOW to government video entities. The AU-EVA1 compact cinema camera and a new class of PTZ remote cameras and controllers capable of operating in 4K 60 and 50p were joined by the AV-HLC100 small switcher, which is capable of direct streaming to YouTube or Facebook Live.

Smaller scale routing and switching needs were also key at AJA, where the company’s affordable Kumo routers and KiPro Ultra+ recorders were on display. Eastern region territory manager for AJA Dan Wingard said the duo were perfect for many of the potential customers walking the aisles. “We see everything from Federal, state and local government people through to community colleges, really a little bit of everything,” said Wingard.

Barbizon, a distributor of lighting, rigging, projection kit and more, said there was a lot going on in the world of LEDs in 2018. One of the big things this year is that a lot of the LEDs are now IP-rated, which has nothing to do with packets of data but is a measure of the protection an item will have against solid objects (dust, sand, dirt, etc.) and liquids, according to Kearston Dillard-Scott, Outside Sales representative for Barbizon. “Variety is also a trend,” said Dillard-Scott. “Many of the fixtures that were bi-color just from warm to cool can now do full RGB.”

Project Manager for Barbizon Sam Herbig added that the quality of an LED fixture’s light was increasing, and consistency within a product line has greatly improved from a few years ago: “It’s boring, but for anyone lighting to a level it is important,” said Herbig.

IP packets play a large role in an interesting product from Comrex that was on display, and due for shipping before year-end after being launched at the 2018 NAB Show: The VoIP-based Earshot IFB. The hardware-based system delivers live audio feeds to callers and is designed to provide telephone-based live studio program and IFB audio to field-based remote broadcasts, like TV ENG reports or in other applications.

Comrex also had an app called “FieldTap,” which allows a user to connect to Comrex codecs in studio from a cellphone with high-quality wideband audio.

According to Chris Crump, senior director of sales and marketing for the Devens, Mass.-based company, the Comrex LiveShot Portable IP video codec for live wireless newsgathering are in use across government sectors, particularly emergency management and security entities, along with community broadcasters. LiveShot delivers live, two-way, HD video and audio over a range of IP and cellular networks at latencies as low as less than 200mS, he said.

MISSION CRITICAL

Many government and defense video applications are defined as “mission critical,” a niche Oregon-based Planar covers with its narrow pixel pitch direct view LED and LCD panels. “These are purpose-built for mission-critical and mission-command applications, with higher image quality for indoor applications," said Alberto Reyes, director of federal business development for Planar. “We’re now finding other applications as well, any discerning 24/7/365 application in a signage environment really.”

Advances in projection display were evident at the booth of Christie Digital Systems.

“We’re trying to take a leadership position on RGB laser phosphor technology, said Jon Litt, senior manager, Business Development, Government, for Christie. “We’re also trying to bring it to a price point where it would work for more applications.”

Litt said the technology offered tremendous image fidelity, quiet operation, and the ability to run for years with little or no maintenance. Longevity is also a key selling point for the company’s DirectView LED screens, which Litt said had an expected lifespan of 100,000 hours or more while offering exceptional contrast.

HIGH SECURITY CAPTIONING

Captioning is often a government requirement and EEG has been offering encoders that connect broadcasters to iCap, the largest closed captioning and subtitle delivery network in the world, according to the company. While iCap provides 24/7/365 connectivity to thousands of certified caption partners around the globe, new at GV Expo was an option that allows customers to connect to an iCap network via a private VPN, with no public internet connection as part of the process.

“Some customers don’t want any public internet as part of the network, and now that is an option with iCap On-Prem,” said Dave Watts, marketing manager for EEG. iCap On-Prem is a companion product to EEG’s cloud-based delivery network, and it enables the deployment of iCap to private on-premises clouds for customers who require this configuration to accommodate extremely stringent internal security policies. Also on display was an automatic captioning product that relies on Ai and context recognition, and a SMPTE 2110 product.

Security was also key for IBM Watson Media, the end-to-end streaming platform formerly known as UStream: The tagline on the product’s data sheet is “Engage your employees with security-rich video.”

S. Scott Grizzle, WW Cloud Video Solutions Engineer with Watson, said the use cases between a broadcast customer and an enterprise or government customer were different, but there was a lot of crossover. He added that many customers across product sectors were become increasingly interested in video enrichment, where software can identify elements such as scenes, people, animals, etc. and place this information in to metadata.

Equipment aimed at consumers can do a lot of what many media pros need done in 2018. It is perhaps with this in mind that show organizer Future US just announced the launch of The Video Show, a new dual-event venture for December, 2019. The Video Show will pair The Photography Show, now an established U.K.-based event, with the iconic Government Video Expo, which celebrated its 23rd edition this year. 

The event takes place Dec. 3-5, 2019 at the Washington Convention Center. 

What do leading voices from trade, business and journalism have to say about video in 2019?

They say that technology is a key metric for engaging viewers. That enterprise and education have to prepare differently for tomorrow’s video future. That journalism today finds itself part of a unique media climate.

At the 2018 GVExpo, Nov. 27–29 in Washington, attendees will hear from those leaders about what the future may hold.

[Read: “PBS NewsHour” Anchor Judy Woodruff Confronts the Challenge of Today’s Media Climate]

Kicking off the conversation will be a keynote discussion with PBS NewsHour Anchor and Managing Editor Judy Woodruff on Wednesday, Nov. 28. Woodruff will talk about future of journalism and the impact on journalists from today’s media climate. The conversation will be led by Paul McLane, the managing director of content for Future US, who will query Woodruff on technology, current trends in economics and the best ways to go about engaging audiences in today’s segmented media environment.

The status of journalism today continues with conversation on Wednesday with CNN’s Tom Foreman. What’s clear is that journalism — and the technology and tools that drive it — are evolving; that’s an issue that Foreman will cover in the session “From the ‘Situation Room’ to the Thailand Caves — Today’s Evolving Journalism.”

Foreman will talk about how new technology is helping media professionals tell stories more effectively. In July, Foreman used virtual reality technology to illustrate the situation facing emergency personnel attempting to rescue young members of a Thai soccer team from a flooded cave. The resulting VR 3D cross-section of the cave was an immersive, virtual environment that showcased the terrain and potential escape route in bold, visual terms.

On Thursday, Steve Koenig, vice president of market research at the Consumer Technology Association, will touch on key trends in the year ahead in the keynote address “2019 Technology Trends — What to Know, How to Prepare.” He will lead attendees through the potential developments in terms of production, consumption and delivery set for 2019.

The last day will also usher in the all-encompassing keynote discussion “The State of Video in 2018.” The session will look at some successful ways that educational institutions and governmental organizations have approached communication, collaboration, teaching and learning.

Jeff Rubenstein, vice president of Global Product Strategy and Business Development for the video platform company Kaltura, will look at the state of video in both education and enterprise in 2018. And he’ll discuss potential emerging trends that he expects will shape video over the next two years.

The complete schedule for the 2018 GV Expo can be found here.

[Want more information like this? Subscribe to our newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox.]

WASHINGTON--Government Video Expo planners have announced “an expanded schedule of live sessions in two theaters on the expo floor.”

“Not only are we focusing on the latest technology from the video and AV/IT marketplaces, but we are also looking at future-facing opportunities and best practices in order to give attendees a multidimensional experience they can’t find anywhere else,” Future B2B U.S. Chief Content Officer Joe Territo said in a press release.

According to the announcement, attendees will learn about trends, build skills and broaden their professional network.

Programmed by the content directors of Government Video, TV Technology, Digital Video and the Creative Planet Network, sessions on the show floor are intended for audiences active in video production, broadcast and professional AV, with topics including:

• Emerging production/post-production video technologies;
• Business strategies for media professionals;
• Immersive journalism and new storytelling tools;
• Production advances for higher education;
• Live event and streaming production;
• Virtual reality and its potential in education and enterprise;
• 2019 professional and consumer technology trends;
• Drone/UAV photography.

Headlining this year will be a keynote conversation with PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff. She will discuss the media climate of 2018 and her high-profile role in it.

“We’ll explore how video technology is transforming government, education and business, creating incredible potential for the professionals, manufacturers and service providers serving this ever-expanding market,” said Future B2B U.S. Managing Director of Content Paul McLane.

The 23rd GV Expo will be collocated with DC Post|Production Conference and the Government Learning Technology Symposium and is scheduled for Nov. 27–29 at Washington’s Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Registration for the event opened in mid-May.

The event is produced by Future US, an information and event producer for the professional communications, entertainment and education technology markets.