In "America at a Crossroads with Judy Woodruff," a PBS NewsHour special to air on Tuesday, Dec. 19, Judy Woodruff will take a look back at the first nine months of a two-year project she embarked on to explore the deep divisions and distrust among Americans.

Woodruff stepped away from the anchor desk at the PBS NewsHour in December of 2022 and has traveled the country interviewing scholars, public figures, and ordinary people. In the segments that have aired on the NewsHour this year, she has delved into how and why these divisions came about, and what we as Americans can do to find common ground. An August 2 segment featured Canadian.

Woodruff interviewed The Canadian Record’s editor and publisher Laurie Ezzell Brown. Brown had come to Woodruff’s attention through Emmy-winning filmmaker Heather Courtney’s documentary, For The Record, about the daily life of a rural newspaper. Since the film’s premiere in February, it has shown at several film festivals across the country. In August, Courtney was also interviewed by Woodruff in Canadian, along with several local people: Wendie Cook, executive director of The Citadelle Art Museum; rancher Steve Rader; and businessman John Julian.

The August 2 segment honed in on how the loss of local newspapers has fueled political divisions in the U.S. An August 30 piece illustrated how other newspapers in the country dealt with the same issues. Woodruff and her crew have been to college campuses to talk to students; and to Iowa, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to hear from voters. Woodruff has interviewed medical professionals about how the pandemic made public health politically charged, and visited Tulsa and Oklahoma City to explore historical racism and homegrown extremism. She has also consulted historians who have compared America’s current divisions to the past, how we can overcome them, and the threats to American democracy. The series will culminate with the 2024 presidential election.

The hour-long PBS special will air on Panhandle PBS KACV in Amarillo tomorrow, Tuesday, December 19, at 8 pm, CST. It will include segments from the “America at a Crossroads” story on Canadian.