Broadcast Journalist Judy Woodruff Advocates for Careful Planning and Limitless Possibilities
Broadcast Journalist Judy Woodruff is no stranger to learning to adapt on the spot. Woodruff graduated from Duke University with a degree in Political Science and aspired to become a broadcast journalist to report about politics. With no formal training, she started off as a secretary who would steal glances into the main newsroom to try to learn the tricks of the trade.
Decades later and Woodruff has carved herself a spot in broadcast journalism history as a highly renowned news anchor for networks like NBC, PBS, and CNN as well as a recipient for over 25 prestigious awards and a board member of many organizations and corporations.
Her sharp wit, creative thinking, and ability to learn on the spot were tested when her son Jeffery, born with Spina Bifida, was left severely disabled following a surgery when he was sixteen. As a guest on our podcast, Woodruff remembers the adaptations her family had to quickly make following the incident.
In the months follow the surgery, Woodruff rallied with her son and family to overcome any new obstacle he faced, remaining adamant that there was always a way to overcome barriers. Before Jeffery’s surgery, the family would travel both domestically and internationally frequently, a priority that was derived from Woodruff’s passion for international affairs and her own upbringing in a military family that saw her moving frequently.
Did Woodruff and her family stop travel following Jeffery’s surgery?
In her interview with Canaday, Woodruff laughed as she recalled the sheer determination that catapulted her and her family to trips to Morocco and St. Petersburg in the couple years following the surgery. Woodruff remembers the challenges of accessibility that plagued the trips, from markets that were not able to be navigated by wheelchairs to buildings and restaurants in which Jeffery would have to be carried up flights of stairs by his dad and where she and her daughters carried the wheelchair.
The lesson learned from those trips?
Planning -- careful, intricate planning -- is the key to traveling with a person with a disability. Woodruff recalled the countless phone calls she would make to restaurants and hotels to ensure that rooms were ADA compliant or that restaurants could be accessed by a wheelchair. She recalled carefully reading and researching about which sights and cities were known to be wheelchair-friendly and planned her trips around the recommendations. She recalls the cruises her family would take because the ships were accessible and the rooms big enough for wheelchairs.
As her and her family members have aged, Woodruff has taken advantage of hiring people to accompany them on trips and has become mindful of locations that would be difficult to navigate with age. Despite that, she remains adamant that no travel destination should be completely off limits, each location simply requires careful planning beforehand to ensure the trip runs smoothly.
Her dream destination to take her family? An African Safari, which Woodruff is hopeful will happen soon, despite admitting that a safari would require an amount of foresight unmatched by any trip she has planned before.
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