FREE! Veteran broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff joins WUCF to share her successful career in broadcasting and how the journalism field has changed over the past few decades.

Drawing from major national and international stories, Woodruff will provide an inside perspective around current events and issues as well as provide an insightful take on the politics at play in today’s world.

With over four decades as a broadcast journalist, who better to discuss the changing landscape of the industry and its impact in politics and society than Judy Woodruff. Join WUCF NewsNight Executive Producer, Steve Mort and Judy Woodruff, along with LaToya Dennis of WMFE, Scott Maxwell of Orlando Sentinel, and Allison McGinley of WKMG, for what promises to be a fascinating conversation about the past, present and future of journalism in our society.

This event is held in partnership with WUCF as part of their 10^th anniversary celebrations.

A Conversation with Judy Woodruff

Judy Woodruff
Senior Correspondent for PBS NewsHour, after serving for 11 years as its Anchor and Managing Editor. She has covered politics and other news for more than four decades at CNN, NBC, and PBS. The recipient of numerous awards, including the Peabody Journalistic Integrity Award, the Poynter Medal, an Emmy for Lifetime Achievement, and the Radcliffe Medal, she and the late Gwen Ifill were together awarded Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism after Woodruff and Ifill were named co-anchors of the PBS NewsHour in 2013, marking the first time an American national news broadcast would be co-anchored by two women. Woodruff is a founding co-chair of the International Women’s Media Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging women in communication industries worldwide. She serves on the boards of trustees of the Freedom Forum and The Duke Endowment. Formerly she was a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Urban Institute, and a member of The Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

Steve Mort – WUCF NewsNight, Anchor and Executive Director
Steve Mort joined the WUCF staff as Executive Producer of NewsNight in 2019. Steve’s award-winning work as an independent journalist and videographer, has been seen through outlets around the world. Before becoming the lead of the NewsNight Team, Steve was a contributing multimedia journalist for PBS NewsHour, Colorado’s Rocky Mountain PBS and RMPBS’s investigative unit, I-News. In addition, he was the producer and host of WUCF Public Radio’s ArtBeat program, and a newscaster for Independent Radio News, LBC Radio and BBC Greater London Radio.

LaToya Dennis – WMFE, News Director
LaToya Dennis began her journalism career as a general assignment reporter at WUWM in Milwaukee in 2006. Throughout her tenure, she has taken on many leadership roles from training and mentoring newsroom fellows to co-executive producing an Edward R. Murrow award winning series called Project Milwaukee. Dennis has been at the forefront of rethinking what news is and how to best deliver it to communities not traditionally well served by public radio.

Allison McGinley – WKMG, News Director
Allison McGinley began working with WKMG News 6 as an intern in 1994. From intern to news director, she has served the Central Florida community through a variety of roles at the station. Upon promotion to News Director in 2015, McGinley has led the newsroom through some of its toughest challenges, beginning with the massacre of 49 people at Pulse Nightclub in June of 2016, as well as successfully innovating new ways of communicating with viewers on all platforms, 24/7 through the COVID pandemic. In 2018, Allison was named to the Board of Directors of Radio Television Digital News Association and was recently appointed Chair of the Association for 2022.

Scott Maxwell – Orlando Sentinel Columnist
“Taking Names” columnist, Scott Maxwell, came to the Sentinel newsroom in 1998, when he covered Orange County. He started penning a column in 2002 and has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of American Business Writers and Editors and others. He’s fascinated by people and politics— and likes giving readers information they won’t get elsewhere. Before coming to Orlando, Scott worked for the Winston-Salem Journal and the Chapel Hill Herald.