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PBS
Anna Nawaz will make history as a co-moderator of a Presidential debate. |
It took five debates, but finally, an Asian American journalist will moderate a Presidential debate. Anna Nawaz, PBS NewsHour senior national correspondent, will join the four-member panel moderating the Dec. 19 debate among Democratic candidates.
Pakistani American Nawaz will join PBS NewsHour anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff, Politico chief political correspondent Tim Alberta and PBS NewsHour White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor to question the candidates who qualify for the sixth Democratic debate at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Nawaz will make history by becoming the first Asian American to moderate a Presidential debate. She tweeted "I'm humbled and honored to be named to the
@PBS
@politico
#DemDebate moderator team, with
@JudyWoodruff
,
@Yamiche
+
@TimAlberta
"
After the first two debates that featured white, black and Latino moderators, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus began urging the media hosts of the series of Democratic debates to include an Asian American on one of the panels. The September, October and November debates occurred and it appeared that the mainstream media were deaf to the lobbying by AAPI politicians and community leaders.
This is the first debate being co-hosted by nonprofit Public Broadcasting Company and Politico, a publication and online newsite specializing on politics.
At this point, only six candidates of the 16 Democratic hopefuls have qualified for December 19 debate, including Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Tom Steyer. With Kamala Harris ending her campaign, this could be the first time there will be no candidates of color on the stage. Julian Castro, who missed the November debate, Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang have not met the qualifications set by the Democratic National Committee.
Nawaz joined PBS NewsHour in April 2018 and serves as senior national correspondent and primary substitute anchor.
Prior to joining the NewsHour, Nawaz was an anchor and correspondent at ABC News, anchoring breaking news coverage and leading the network’s digital coverage of the 2016 presidential election. Before that, she served as a foreign correspondent at NBC News, reporting from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, and the broader region. She is also the founder and former managing editor of NBC’s Asian America platform, built to elevate the voices of America’s fastest-growing population.
At the NewsHour, Nawaz has reported politics, foreign affairs, education, climate change, culture and sports. Her immigration reporting has taken her to multiple border communities in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. She’s investigated the impact of the Trump Administration’s immigration policies, including following the journey of a single toddler as she left her home in Mexico, was separated from her family at the U.S. border, and later reunited with her family several weeks later. She also regularly covers issues around detention, refugees and asylum, and migrant children in U.S. government custody.
Nawaz has interviewed international newsmakers and US leaders and influential voices including Reba McEntire, Gloria Estefan, and Dev Patel.
Domestically, her reporting has taken her to Appalachia to cover healthcare and the economy, the Pacific Northwest to cover gentrification and discrimination in housing, and communities across the country to take the political pulse of the nation. Internationally, she’s traveled to Brazil to report on climate change from within the Amazon, and the Venezuelan refugee crisis.
In 2019, her reporting as part of a NewsHour series on the global plastic problem was the recipient of a Peabody Award.
While at ABC News, Nawaz reported the documentary, “Roberts County: A Year in the Most Pro-Trump Town,” following four families’ lives over President Trump’s first year in office, and hosted the podcast series, “Uncomfortable,” featuring in-depth, one-on-one conversations with thought leaders on the issues dividing America.
Earlier, at NBC News, she was NBC’s Islamabad Bureau Chief and Correspondent for several years, and was the first foreign journalist allowed inside North Waziristan, the then-global hub of Al Qaida and the Taliban. She covered the Taliban attack on Malala Yousafzai, the US raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, and broke news in a series of exclusive reports on the impact of US drone strikes. Nawaz reported for the network’s investigative unit, covering the US housing crisis and the BP oil spill, and also covered the election and inauguration of Barack Obama, the earthquake in Haiti, and Hurricane Katrina.
The University of Pennsylvania grad has also been honored with an Emmy Award for the NBC News Special “Inside the Obama White House,” a Society for Features Journalism Award, and was a recipient of the International Reporting Project fellowship in 2009.
She lives with her husband and two daughters in the Washington, D.C. area.
Prior to joining the NewsHour, Nawaz was an anchor and correspondent at ABC News, anchoring breaking news coverage and leading the network’s digital coverage of the 2016 presidential election. Before that, she served as a foreign correspondent at NBC News, reporting from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, and the broader region. She is also the founder and former managing editor of NBC’s Asian America platform, built to elevate the voices of America’s fastest-growing population.
At the NewsHour, Nawaz has reported politics, foreign affairs, education, climate change, culture and sports. Her immigration reporting has taken her to multiple border communities in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. She’s investigated the impact of the Trump Administration’s immigration policies, including following the journey of a single toddler as she left her home in Mexico, was separated from her family at the U.S. border, and later reunited with her family several weeks later. She also regularly covers issues around detention, refugees and asylum, and migrant children in U.S. government custody.
Nawaz has interviewed international newsmakers and US leaders and influential voices including Reba McEntire, Gloria Estefan, and Dev Patel.
Domestically, her reporting has taken her to Appalachia to cover healthcare and the economy, the Pacific Northwest to cover gentrification and discrimination in housing, and communities across the country to take the political pulse of the nation. Internationally, she’s traveled to Brazil to report on climate change from within the Amazon, and the Venezuelan refugee crisis.
In 2019, her reporting as part of a NewsHour series on the global plastic problem was the recipient of a Peabody Award.
While at ABC News, Nawaz reported the documentary, “Roberts County: A Year in the Most Pro-Trump Town,” following four families’ lives over President Trump’s first year in office, and hosted the podcast series, “Uncomfortable,” featuring in-depth, one-on-one conversations with thought leaders on the issues dividing America.
Earlier, at NBC News, she was NBC’s Islamabad Bureau Chief and Correspondent for several years, and was the first foreign journalist allowed inside North Waziristan, the then-global hub of Al Qaida and the Taliban. She covered the Taliban attack on Malala Yousafzai, the US raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, and broke news in a series of exclusive reports on the impact of US drone strikes. Nawaz reported for the network’s investigative unit, covering the US housing crisis and the BP oil spill, and also covered the election and inauguration of Barack Obama, the earthquake in Haiti, and Hurricane Katrina.
The University of Pennsylvania grad has also been honored with an Emmy Award for the NBC News Special “Inside the Obama White House,” a Society for Features Journalism Award, and was a recipient of the International Reporting Project fellowship in 2009.
She lives with her husband and two daughters in the Washington, D.C. area.
In an earlier interview with Jade Magazine, Nawaz said: “I’ve had people make assumptions about me – because I’m a woman, because I’m Asian, because my family’s from Pakistan, because I’m Muslim – but I can’t control what others think. All I can do is bring my whole self to this job, to report the stories as I see them, and try to treat others’ stories with the same care and respect I’d want someone to treat mine.”
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