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Gwen Ifill

About Gwen

In Memoriam: Gwen Ifill was the moderator and managing editor of "Washington Week" and co-anchor and managing editor for "The PBS NEWSHOUR w/ Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff."

The best-selling author of "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," (Doubleday, 2009), she also moderated the Vice Presidential debates during the Presidential elections in 2004 and 2008.

Gwen covered eight Presidential campaigns, and during the 2008 campaign season, won the George Foster Peabody Award after bringing Washington Week to live audiences around the country as part of a 10-city tour.

Now in its 49th year, Washington Week is the longest-running prime-time news and public affairs program on television. Each week, Gwen brought together some of the best journalists in Washington to discuss the major stories of the week with the reporters who actually cover the news that emanates from the nation's capital and affects the nation and the world.

Gwen joined both Washington Week and PBS NewsHour in 1999, interviewing newsmakers and reporting on issues ranging from foreign affairs to politics. Before coming to PBS, she was chief congressional and political correspondent for NBC News, White House correspondent for The New York Times, and a local and national political reporter for The Washington Post. She also reported for the Baltimore Evening Sun and the Boston Herald American.

"I always knew I wanted to be a journalist, and my first love was newspapers," Ifill said. "But public broadcasting provides the best of both worlds-combining the depth of newspapering with the immediate impact of broadcast television."

A native of New York City and a graduate of Simmons College in Boston, Ifill received more than 25 honorary doctorates. In 2015 she was awarded with the National Press Club's highest honor, the Fourth Estate Award. She has also been honored for her work by the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center, The National Association of Black Journalists, Ohio University, and was included in Ebony Magazine's list of 150 Most Influential African Americans.

She also served on the board of the News Literacy Project, on the advisory board of the Committee to Protect Journalists and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Remembering Gwen Ifill

Full Bio

Gwen’s Recent Stories

Politics Sep 21

Gwen’s Take: When the Horse Race Matters (Kinda)

In the past twelve days, there have been 82 published election polls. Eighty-two. National, state-by-state and some partisan polls. And that's just the presidential surveys. And we stopped counting on Thursday. Taken together, they tell of a good week for…

Politics Sep 07

Gwen’s Take: Lessons Learned in Tampa and Charlotte

Delegates from North Carolina react to Vice President Joe Biden's speech during the closing night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention held at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, N.C. Photo by Jared Soares for the PBS NewsHour.

Politics Aug 31

Gwen’s Take: Five Things to Watch for in Charlotte

Photo of Charlotte, N.C., by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images. Charlotte, N.C. | We dodged a hurricane, survived the gripping humidity and thrived for a week in the belly of the beast -- a national political convention that one first-time attendee…

Politics Aug 24

Gwen’s Take: Five Things to Watch For in Tampa

Workers put the finishing touches on the inside of the Tampa Bay Times Forum in preparation for the Republican National Convention Monday in Tampa, Florida. Photo by Tim Boyles/Getty Images Tampa | Florida politics has always been its own special…

Politics Aug 17

Four Years Later, Artur Davis Breaks Through

Artur Davis listens to an audience question during a speech Sunday to Fredericksburg Young Republicans in Virginia. Photo by Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images. When I set out to write a book several years ago about a…

Politics Jul 20

Gwen’s Take: The Search for Mr. (or Ms.) Right

I am about to break a promise I made to you. I said this would be a safe space, one that would not turn itself over to rank speculation about the vice presidential sweepstakes. But the candidates for president have…

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