The President's Forum Presents: Gwen Ifill

April 20, 2010 |

Gwen Ifill — the moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent for PBS NewsHour — will deliver a President’s Forum lecture titled “Why Journalism Matters” on Tuesday, April 20, at 8 p.m. in the Hyman Forum of Goucher College’s Athenaeum.

This event is free and open to the public, but tickets must be reserved by calling 410-337-6333 or by e-mailing boxoffice@goucher.edu.

For more than a decade, Ifill has been a fixture on public television, bringing balanced, opinion-free news coverage to more than 3 million homes every night.

She has said she believes news coverage should “shed light rather than emit heat.” During her lecture, she will discuss groupthink in the Washington press corps, punditry’s exalted place over reportage, and the popularity of both “shout shows” and “fake news” to uncover why journalism matters.
 
Ifill began her journalism career as a reporter with the Boston Herald-American. She later moved to Baltimore’s Evening Sun, where she began to focus her coverage more on politics. While there, she also had her first opportunity in front of the cameras as the host of a news show for a local public television station.

She worked at The Washington Post and The New York Times before deciding to switch to television reporting. After weighing offers from all three major news networks, she joined NBC News in 1994 as a Congressional correspondent. In addition to her work as on-air reporter, she also appeared as a guest on several political programs, including Meet the Press and PBS’s Washington Week.

Impressed with her analytical skills and journalistic savvy, PBS hired Ifill for two of its news programs in 1999: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Washington Week. She works as a senior correspondent for the newly renamed PBS NewsHour, conducting interviews with key figures and filing reports on the latest news.

On Washington Week, Ifill brings together some of the best journalists in Washington to discuss major news stories from the nation’s capital.

Capable of handling complex issues and clashing personalities, Ifill has been called upon to moderate a number of political debates, including between vice presidential candidates Dick Cheney and John Edwards in 2004 and Joe Biden and Sarah Palin in 2008.

She is also the best-selling author of The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

Ifill has been honored for her work by the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center, the National Association of Black Journalists, and Boston’s Ford Hall Forum, and she was included in Ebony Magazine’s list of 150 Most Influential African Americans.

She also serves on the boards of the Harvard University Institute of Politics and the Committee to Protect Journalists and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The President’s Forum at Goucher College brings to campus notable figures from various fields and backgrounds for incisive discussions and lively debates on today’s most vital issues. Presented several times a year, the Forum is an open invitation to the members of our community — both on campus and beyond — to participate in the intellectual life of the college through open dialogue on topics both relevant and timely.