Clarity when it matters most

With federal funding gone, your monthly support powers PBS News
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 Jun 18

Gwen’s Take: Covering the Oil Disaster

As President Obama struggled to assert control over what seems to be an uncontrollable situation, I had the chance to assess the unspooling oil disaster dilemma this week by talking to folks living with it, and folks watching from afar.

Politics Jun 11

Gwen’s Take: Unconventional Wisdom

I am frequently wrong. Now there's an admission you won't hear that often from someone who makes a living in Washington. But this most recent round of primary results reminded me of all of the times I have assumed…

Politics May 28

Gwen’s Take: The California Governor’s Race

I was strolling through the town square in the pretty, precious town of Mill Valley, California, last weekend, reporting on California's gubernatorial race, when I realized I might have to change my mind about politics. Only a few weeks ago,…

Politics May 21

Gwen’s Take: When Washington Insiders Become Outsiders

Every few years, national politics seems to get a jolt. Tuesday's elections in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Arkansas proved once again how Washington insider status can be a two-edged sword. One man's experience can be another's complicity - especially in times…

Politics May 07

Gwen’s Take: The Politics of Panic

It felt as if everyone was rushing to the ramparts this week. From Times Square to the Gulf Coast to Greece and Wall Street, the world has seemed positively out of breath. Part of the reason, of…

Politics Apr 30

Gwen’s Take: ‘Washington Rhetoric: The Decoder’

Emotion. Fear. Guilt. Racism. These drivers, according to former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, are the four horsemen of a rhetorical apocalypse that stops things from getting done in Washington. "Those are the four things I find in my time…

Politics Apr 16

Gwen’s Take: Debating the Debate

I got a lot of mail this week, almost all of it online, and much of it angry. The reason? I tried to tell both sides of a story. The occasion was our PBS NewsHour "Spotlight Series" in Tampa, Florida.

Support Provided By: Learn more