PERSON: Gwen Ifill

Co-anchor

GWEN IFILL is moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week” and co-anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. She is also the best-selling author of The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, (Doubleday, 2009).<br> <br> Gwen reports on a wide range of issues from foreign affairs to U.S. politics and policies interviewing national and international newsmakers. She has covered seven Presidential campaigns and moderated two vice presidential debates — in 2004 the debate between Republican Dick Cheney and Democrat John Edwards and in 2008 the debate between Democratic Senator Joe Biden and Republican Governor Sarah Palin.<br> <br> Each week on Washington Week, Gwen leads a robust roundtable discussion with award-winning journalists who provide reporting and analysis of the major stories emanating from the nation’s capital. Now in its 47th year on the air, Washington Week is the longest-running prime-time news and public affairs program on television.<br> <br> During the 2008 presidential campaign season Washington Week launched a 10-city series of road shows across America with live audiences. The regular broadcasts and whistle-stop series earned Washington Week a 2008 Peabody Award. In honoring Washington Week the committee cited the program for “its reasoned, reliable contribution to the national discourse,” and as the gold standard “for public-affairs enthusiasts who prefer illumination to confrontational fireworks.” In 2012, Washington Week again hit the road for a series of broadcasts, this time to three cities across America allowing the live audience to interact with Gwen and her weekly panelists on the issues surrounding the election year.<br> <br> Before coming to PBS in 1999, Gwen 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. Her work as a journalist has been honored by the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center, Ebony Magazine and Boston’s Ford Hall Forum.<br> <br> Gwen has received more than 20 honorary doctorates and currently serves on the boards of the News Literacy Project, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and she is a fellow with the American Academy of Sciences. A native of New York City, Gwen graduated from Simmons College in Boston.<br> <br> — pbs.org