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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 Jan 03

Gwen’s Caucus Day Take: 5 Things to Watch for in Iowa

We love it when voters take over the narrative, and that's what will happen in Iowa Tuesday night as voters meet to caucus and choose a possible presidential nominee. Here's what we're watching: How will social conservatives split? Conventional wisdom…

Politics Oct 14

Gwen’s Take: The Danger of the Sweeping Conclusion

Breaking news: Herman Cain has endorsed Mitt Romney. If that's news to you, it's because it happened four years ago. Thanks to Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic for the reminder that everything old is new again. Cain, who emerged…

Politics Oct 07

Controlling The Stage: A Politicians’ Primer

Politics is not an ego-free business. And why should it be? I got a taste of that this week as New Jersey's Chris Christie and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took themselves out of presidential consideration. I saw the other…

Politics Aug 12

And They’re Off: The GOP Campaign, in Full Effect

DES MOINES, Iowa | About halfway through my grilled pork chop on a stick at the State Fair, I was reminded why covering politics in Iowa is so different than anywhere else. Gwen Ifill and NewsHour Political Editor David Chalian…

Nation May 04

Gwen Ifill: Getting the Bin Laden Story

My flight from Seattle had just touched down at Reagan Washington National airport late Sunday night when I clicked on my BlackBerry. It immediately began buzzing with an alarming stream of emails and tweets. An hour later, the president…

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