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Gwen Ifill

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Gwen Ifill

About Gwen @gwenifill

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 Apr 22

Confidence, Conviction and Campaign 2012

I once covered a politician who was a very certain man. He remained convinced throughout his public career that he knew best - certainly better than any naysayer, political opponent or reporter. His certainty got things done, but you had…

Politics Apr 01

Iowa, I Hear You Calling

AMES, Iowa | I have this little theory that has long served me well. Everything, I believe, is politics. Politics determines whether your children go to school or to jail; whether they eat or starve; whether their futures will improve…

Politics Feb 11

Gwen’s Take: When Sending Signals Matters, When It Doesn’t

House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor strolled out onto the White House lawn after lunch with the president this week to deliver an upbeat and focused message to the reporters gathered there. "I thought it was…

Politics Dec 03

One-Week Wonders: We Pay Attention So You Don’t Have To

I have a new theory. Let me know what you think about it. Has it occurred to anyone lately that so many of the things we obsess about turn out to be stories that last for - give or take…

Politics Sep 03

Gwen’s Take: Middle East Peace Talks Then and Now

"A great moment of opportunity," she said. "There's a lot of skepticism out there," he said. "But I think there is ground to be hopeful." She was Madeleine Albright, a Democrat and former secretary of state. He was Stephen Hadley,…

Politics Aug 27

Gwen’s Take: Why We Love It When the President Goes Away

The president of the United States is on vacation. I am not. It rained for his first three days in Martha's Vineyard. The sun was shining here in Washington. (Tee hee.) Forgive my enjoyment. But it's nice to take a…

Politics Jul 30

Gwen’s Take: Toxic Conversations

A few years ago, my friends Mark Halperin, now of Time Magazine, and John Harris, now of Politico, coined the term "freak show" as a catchall for the fever that overtakes those of us in the information gathering business from…

Nation Jul 16

Gwen’s Take: Entering the ‘Twitterverse’

You see, that headline is what I've always hated about Twitter. It's way too cute. But, alas, I have been lured in. My first week on Twitter has been enlightening, funny and a little creepy. You have to understand…

Politics Jul 09

Gwen’s Take: Taking the Candor Challenge

Let me let you in on a Washington reality game show -- the ongoing push and pull between journalists and the people they cover. The prize: simple candor. By candor, I don't mean that I expect the people we interview…

Politics Jul 02

Gwen’s Take: Who Knew the Supreme Court Could Be Funny?

Perhaps Antonin Scalia has met his match. It is all well and good that the high court's most conservative justice probably disagrees with Elena Kagan on nearly everything involving Constitutional interpretation. But Scalia and Kagan may find far more common…

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