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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 Nov 07

Gwen’s Take: The midterms’ message

I went back and re-watched our analysis of the 2010 midterm elections and was reminded that even political waves eventually crash on the shore. It’s a huge deal, until it’s not.

Politics Oct 17

Diving Into The Disconnect

Gwen Ifill visits both sides of the chasm while reporting on a tossup Senate race in Colorado one day and from inside the halls at the Treasury Department the next.

Politics Oct 10

Gwen’s Take: Time flies as does the news

One of the best features of my career is that I have gotten to meet and work with some of the most stellar people in the business. From Tim Russert and Jim Lehrer to Bryant Gumbel, Andrea Mitchell and Judy…

Politics Oct 03

Gwen’sTake: After ‘After Ferguson’

Our PBS town hall meeting, “America After Ferguson,” was one of the most remarkable journalistic experiences of my career, so I was thrilled to see how it resonated with our viewing audience.

Nation Sep 26

Gwen’s Take: After Ferguson – What I Learned

When PBS first decided to come to Missouri to dig a bit beneath the surface, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical. Would anyone still be talking about Ferguson a month later? What I discovered at the town…

Politics Sep 25

Eric Holder: no one forced me out

Almost immediately after the first reports of Attorney General Eric Holder’s impending resignation surfaced today, his detractors did too. “Eric Holder is the most divisive U.S. Attorney General in modern history,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) – with whom Holder often…

Politics Sep 12

Gwen’s Take: A strategy in four points

I found myself chuckling aloud at the otherwise most unremarkable line in President Obama’s Wednesday night address to the nation. “This is our strategy,” he intoned. Then he ticked off four points. It was hard not to believe the leader…

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