{"id":22287,"date":"2018-04-23T23:20:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T05:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=22287"},"modified":"2018-04-23T23:20:25","modified_gmt":"2018-04-24T05:20:25","slug":"woodruff-demands-grow-on-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2018\/04\/woodruff-demands-grow-on-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"Woodruff: Demands grow on journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

David Crisp\/Last Best News<\/p>

Brian Kahn interviews Judy Woodruff at Montana State University Billings.<\/p><\/div>\n

Growing up as an Army brat traveling the world, Judy Woodruff was naturally drawn to the world of public issues and events, she said here Monday.<\/p>\n

Woodruff, anchor and managing editor for the \u201cPBS News Hour,\u201d also said that her mother, who never finished high school, sparked her lifelong interest in education.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I heard the entire time I was growing up,\u201d she said, \u201cwas, \u2018Get your education. Get your education.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodruff answered questions for more than an hour Monday evening in Petro Theatre at Montana State University Billings. She took questions from a crowd of several hundred people after a half-hour interview by Brian Kahn, host of \u201cHome Ground\u201d on public radio in Montana.<\/p>\n

She also spoke at a noon luncheon in the Billings Public Library\u2019s Royal Johnson Community Room, where she told an audience of about 120 people that these are challenging times for the news media.<\/p>\n

As print newspapers get smaller \u2014 in terms of reporters and column inches \u2014 and as journalists come under attack as \u201cenemies of the people\u201d and purveyors of \u201cfake news,\u201d Woodruff said, \u201cwe are being called on to do our job better than we\u2019ve ever done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Judy Woodruff speaks at the Billings Public Library.<\/p><\/div>\n

Fortunately, she said, some news organizations are up to the challenge, and \u201csome of the finest journalism I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d is being produced today.<\/p>\n

The evening discussion also was generally upbeat, despite the obvious difficulties facing the news business nationwide. In response to a question from a 12-year-old student journalist, Woodruff said that good journalists always will be in demand, even if it is not yet clear what form journalism will take.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need you,\u201d she told the 12-year-old, drawing applause from a friendly audience.<\/p>\n

Woodruff noted that she was a pioneer among women in the news business, breaking in in 1976, a time when women journalists were rare.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a pioneer, for sure,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t go back to the covered wagons, but sometimes I feel like I go back that far.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that the number of women TV anchors surpassed the number of male anchors a few years ago, but even that could be an artifact of lingering sexism. Male anchors are allowed to keep their jobs well into middle age, she said, while the demand is constantly for younger female anchors.<\/p>\n

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Woodruff followed her father\u2019s Army career to stations in Missouri, Georgia, New Jersey and overseas in Germany and Taiwan. By seventh grade she had attended seven different schools, sparking a lifelong interest in public affairs.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>As a teenager, she was gripped by coverage of President Kennedy\u2019s assassination, followed within a few years by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.<\/p>\n

She began college as a math major but switched to political science after finding out, she said, that math professors at the time didn\u2019t really think women should be studying calculus. She worked as an intern for a Georgia congressman and graduated from Duke University.<\/p>\n

She said that she later regretted not having become more involved in the civil rights movement, but her early exposure to a wide range of human conditions helped her understand that \u201cpeople struggle. Things are not handed to you.\u201d She became determined to give a voice to people who otherwise might not have one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose journalism because I felt journalism could be a way to shine a light,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Woodruff has covered politics and other news for more than four decades at CNN, NBC and PBS. She was an anchor and senior correspondent for CNN for 12 years and previously worked for PBS from 1983 to 1993, when she was the chief Washington correspondent for \u201cThe MacNeil\/Lehrer NewsHour.\u201d From 1984 to 1990, she also anchored PBS\u2019 award-winning weekly documentary series, \u201cFrontline with Judy Woodruff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the confines of her current job, she still tries to stay in touch with the world outside Washington, D.C., by reading and traveling to places like Billings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t ever want to get to a place where I feel like I\u2019ve got it figured out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But she acknowledged that journalists have a long way to go in keeping the public adequately informed, noting the low voter turnout in America, particularly in local and state elections.<\/p>\n

That puts an extra burden on journalists, particularly in a changing industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the moment we open our eyes in the morning,\u201d she said, \u201cwe\u2019re working.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said that public broadcasting doesn\u2019t face all of the competitive pressures that drive \u201clowest common denominator\u201d reporting at commercial networks. PBS has the freedom to \u201cdare to be dull\u201d by delving into important but complex topics, she said.<\/p>\n

In response to a question, Woodruff said that politics in Washington today has become \u201cmean-spirited\u201d and a \u201cblood sport.\u201d Lawmakers frequently leave town on Thursday night and return Monday night, limiting the time they have to get to know and work with each other, she said. They ascribe terrible motives to the opposing party and even question opponents\u2019 patriotism.<\/p>\n

Too many reporters now cover the president, she said, neglecting stories that could come out of federal agencies, the Pentagon and lobbyists.<\/p>\n

Asked during the noon luncheon if it has been hard to remain objective during the presidency of Donald Trump, Woodruff said that fairness, not objectivity, should be the goal. She said an editor told her during her first job on a newspaper that nobody cared what she thought, so she should leave herself out of the stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I learned and that\u2019s who I am,\u201d she said, and as a result, \u201cit\u2019s not different for me\u201d in the Trump era. \u201cI tend to be someone who tries really hard to see both sides of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also again emphasized that journalists need to stay in touch with their readers and viewers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get out and talk to more Americans,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about getting out and literally sitting down with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodruff\u2019s appearance was sponsored by the Billings Public Library Foundation, Yellowstone Public Radio, Friends of Montana PBS, Buchanan Capital, the Zonta Club of Billings and MSU Billings.<\/p>\n

Ed Kemmick contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up as an Army brat traveling the world, Judy Woodruff was naturally drawn to the world of public issues and events, she said here Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[6275,662,6875,6925,6300],"class_list":["post-22287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-brian-kahn","tag-cnn","tag-judy-woodruff","tag-nbc","tag-pbs","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22287"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22291,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22287\/revisions\/22291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}