The Jamal Khashoggi Annual Address on Journalism and the Media will feature Bob Woodruff March 19, 2024. This address honors Jamal Khashoggi, a 1983 alumnus of Indiana State University. Mr. Khashoggi was among the journalists known as “The Guardians” honored by Time magazine as Person of the Year in 2018 for their pursuit of truth despite tremendous obstacles.

This annual address examines current and critical issues related to journalism, the first amendment and freedom of the press. Invited speakers include prominent journalists, authors, filmmakers, photojournalists or other professionals working in the media.

Bob Woodruff joined ABC News in 1996 and has covered major stories throughout the country and around the world for the network. He was named co-anchor of ABC World News Tonight in December 2005 to replace Peter Jennings who died of lung cancer. On January 29, 2006, while reporting on U.S. and Iraqi security forces, Woodruff was seriously injured by a roadside bomb that struck his vehicle near Taji, Iraq.

In February 2007, just 13 months after being wounded in Iraq, Woodruff returned to ABC News with his first on-air report, “To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports”. The hour-long, primetime documentary chronicled his traumatic brain injury (TBI), his painstaking recovery and the plight of thousands of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with similar injuries. Woodruff continues to cover traumatic brain injuries for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms and was honored with a “Peabody Award” in 2008 for his reporting on the subject.

Since returning to the air, Woodruff has reported from around the globe—North Korea on the country’s denuclearization process, Syria and Jordan on the exodus of Iraqi refugees in those countries, and from war-torn Sudan. In 2008, ABC News aired his critically acclaimed documentary “China Inside Out”, a closer look at how China’s rapid rise impacts us all and the beginning of what’s being called “The Chinese Century.”

In an August 2008 exclusive on Nightline, former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards admitted in an interview with Woodruff that he had repeatedly lied about an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, a campaign employee. In 2011, Woodruff covered the trial of John Edwards, who was accused and ultimately found not guilty of conspiring to violate campaign finance laws.

Woodruff has travelled to North Korea five times, covering the secretive nation’s nuclear bomb capabilities, its long-range missile launches and most recently in 2013 about the rising power of its new dictator Kim Jong Un. He went to Japan one month after the devastating earthquake and tsunami to report on the race to stabilize the nuclear reactors.

Other than wars and conflicts, in 2014 he also covered the World Cup in Brazil. For years he has also followed the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, traveling extensively with the young members of the Royal Family, also with Prince Harry when he accompanied several wounded British soldiers as they hiked to the North Pole.

Previously Woodruff was anchor of the weekend edition of World News Tonight and one of ABC News’ top correspondents. He was ABC’s lead correspondent on the 2004 Asian tsunami, reporting from Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.

Before moving to New York in 2002, Woodruff worked out of ABC News’ London Bureau. After the September 11 attacks, he was among the first Western reporters into Pakistan and was one of ABC’s lead foreign correspondents during the war in Afghanistan, reporting from Kabul and Kandahar on the fall of the Taliban. His overseas reporting of the fallout from September 11 was part of ABC News’ coverage recognized with the “Alfred I. duPont Award” and the “George Foster Peabody Award”, the two highest honors in broadcast journalism. He was also a part of the ABC News team recognized with a duPont.