{"id":16625,"date":"2026-10-22T10:23:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T14:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/?p=16625"},"modified":"2026-10-23T12:39:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T16:39:05","slug":"recap-uris-annual-amanpour-lecture-series-with-bob-woodruff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/amanpour\/2026\/10\/22\/recap-uris-annual-amanpour-lecture-series-with-bob-woodruff\/","title":{"rendered":"Recap: URI\u2019s Annual Amanpour Lecture Series with Bob Woodruff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct 22 \u2013 On October 6, renowned reporter and journalist Bob Woodruff delivered the University of Rhode Island\u2019s 2026 Christiane Amanpour Lecture and spoke with <a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/\">Harrington School of Communications and Media<\/a> director, <a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/meet\/justin-wyatt\/\">Justin Wyatt<\/a>, at the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Woodruff joined ABC News in 1996 where his initial reporting ranged from breaking news, weather and, due to his past experience as a lawyer, politics. His career took him all over the globe, including London in 2001 and later to Iraq that left him gravely injured in 2006. In 2005, Woodruff joined Elizabeth Vargas on World News Tonight, stepping into the role after the death of former anchor Peter Jennings.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFrom the very beginning, I said all I want to do is report overseas,\u201d Woodruff said. \u201cI knew that the place to go with ABC to cover internationally was London.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2001, Woodruff was sent overseas to cover the war in Kosovo and Serbia. It was during this coverage that 9\/11 took place. For the next five weeks, Woodruff and his team were stuck in Pakistan before they were able to get to the border into Afghanistan, where they covered the international aftermath of the terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was unending war coverage really largely,\u201d Woodruff said. \u201cThere&#8217;s so many big stories, but one that kind of changed everything was the invasion of Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2006, Woodruff was embedded with the Marines during their invasion into Iraq. Woodruff traveled alongside his cameraman, producer, and translator as the Iraqi and American troops went from village to village to warn residents of the United State\u2019s plan to hand power back to the Iraqi military. During this operation Woodruff was caught in an IED explosion that shattered the right side of his jaw and crushed his skull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhile I was down there, I woke up and I looked at my producer Ben Malhotra and said, \u2018are we alive?\u2019 And he said, \u2018you&#8217;re alive,\u2019\u201d Woodruff said. \u201cAnd that&#8217;s the last thing I remembered until I woke up 36 days later in Bethesda Naval.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Woodruff was flown to Baghdad hospital where 16 centimeters of his skull was removed. Although he was expected to die, he was saved by doctors and nurses in Balad Air Base, who discovered a traumatic brain injury. After 35 days in a coma, his family was told to start looking for accommodations for the remainder of his life, before he miraculously woke up on the 36th day.&nbsp; Because the right side of his brain had been damaged, he woke up with aphasia. As a form of therapy for both Woodruff and his wife, they worked together&nbsp; to tell his story in a memoire,&nbsp; \u201c<em>In An Instant: A Family\u2019s Journey of Love and Healing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Woodruff made his return to ABC News 13 months later, continuing to report live short form news and overseas reporting before shifting his focus. Beside him in the Baghdad hospital were 19 year old Marines facing similar injuries. Witnessing so many young veterans that haven&#8217;t had the chance to experience what he had that sparked the start of the Bob Woodruff Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo many lives were saved and the war went on so much longer that they never saw and couldn&#8217;t handle the numbers,\u201d Woodruff said. \u201cSo we knew that we could do something because every American wanted to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Throughout his 30 years in the field, Woodruff has witnessed not only the changes in the world of reporting, but changes in his approach. Moving from live reporting to correspondence, Woodruff\u2019s mission is to have an impact on victims of war. He continues his work on international reporting, most recently completing the documentary<em> Last Lands<\/em> with his son, Mack Woodruff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf I didn&#8217;t have [this] mission\u2026I wouldn&#8217;t be interviewed a lot,\u201d Woodruff said. \u201cBut it&#8217;s great for me\u2026to hear what the young generation wants. To me, that&#8217;s way more interesting.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This article was written by Erin Malinn \u201828, journalism, intern for the College of Arts and Sciences.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Award winning correspondent for ABC News visits the URI community\u00a0to discuss his 30-year career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5153,"featured_media":16637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amanpour","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16641,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16625\/revisions\/16641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}