Gwen Ifill (Journalist)

Abstract

Gwen Ifill (1955–2016) was a dedicated viewer of The Huntley-Brinkley Report during her formative years, often witnessing footage of the Civil Rights Movement—images that her father would supplement with his own accounts of participating in marches. She felt an early pull towards journalism and writing, but didn’t anticipate a career in television. Ifill went on to work at NBC News, PBS NewsHour, and PBS’s Washington Week—at the latter as the program’s first female African-American moderator. Hers was a valued voice in television journalism, silenced too soon by her untimely passing at the age of sixty-one. Karen Herman conducted the interview on October 20, 2011, in Washington, D.C.