NEW YORK: Amna Nawaz, an upcoming Pakistani-American journalist, has been selected to moderate a US presidential debate, which would make her the first woman of South Asian origin to hold the honour, according to media reports.

Nawaz, 40, a senior correspondent for the Public Broadcasting Service news programme “NewsHour”, along with Judy Woodruff, PBS anchor and managing editor, and colleague PBS NewHour White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, and Politico chief political correspondent Tim Alberta, will co-moderate the sixth Democratic primary debate, scheduled for December 19 at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.

Amna is the daughter of Shuja Nawaz, a former Pakistan Television (PTV) journalist and currently a Distinguished Fellow, South Asia Center, at Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think-tank.Nawaz, who joined PBS NewsHour in April 2018, besides serving as its senior national correspondent is also its 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.

Earlier, at NBC News, her work appeared on NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, Dateline NBC, MSNBC, and MSNBC.com.She was NBC’s Islamabad Bureau Chief and Correspondent for several years, and was the first foreign journalist allowed inside North Waziristan. 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.



