WASHINGTON: A Pak­istani-American, Amna Nawaz, has created history by becoming the first South Asian American journalist selected to moderate a US presidential debate.

Amna Nawaz of PBS News Hour will co-moderate the sixth Democratic primary debate on Dec 19 at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.

PBS NewsHour anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff will lead the panel which includes POLITICO chief political correspondent Tim Alberta and PBS NewsHour White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor.

The Virginia-born Nawaz joined PBS NewsHour in April 2018 and is now its senior national correspondent and primary substitute anchor.

Prior to joining the NewsHour, Nawaz was an anchor and correspondent at ABC News, where she covered the 2016 presidential election. Before that, she was 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 NewsHour, Nawaz has reported politics, foreign affairs, education, climate change, culture and sports. She’s investigated the impact of the Trump Administration’s immigration policies, focusing on detention, refugees and asylum, and migrant children in the US government custody.

Amna Nawaz has interviewed international newsmakers — including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and Brazilian leader Eduardo Bolsonaro; lawmakers and Trump Administration’s officials. She has visited 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 received a Peabody Award.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2019