Cision Blog regrets to inform its readers that Gwen Ifill has passed away. Ifill was a longtime anchor for PBS. She most recently served as co-anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour, as well as moderator and managing editor for Washington Week. She was slated to receive The John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism from Columbia University on November 16.
Ifill graduated from Simmons college in 1977 and began her career at the Boston Herald-American. She also held positions with the Baltimore Evening Sun, The Washington Post, The News York Times and NBC before she became a moderator in 1999 for PBS’s Washington Week in Review. In 2013, Ifill and Judy Woodruff were named co-anchor for PBS NewsHour, becoming the first women co-anchors of a network news broadcast.
Ifill wrote the best-selling book “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,” which was released on the day of President Obama’s first inauguration. She received more than 20 honorary doctorates, was a fellow with the American Academy of Sciences, and has been honored by the Peabody Awards, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Radio and Television News Directors Association, among others.
