Long-time journalist and newscaster Gwen Ifill, the host of PBS Newshour and Washington Week, has died, multiple sources have reported.
Ifill was a veteran Washington journalist who covered seven presidential campaigns and moderated the vice presidential debates in 2004 and 2008. Ifill was best known as being the moderator and managing editor of PBS talk show Washington Week, as well as the co-anchor of PBS NewsHour. Ifill was also the best-selling author of “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,” which was released in 2009.
She moderated two vice-presidential debates, between John Edwards and Dick Cheney in 2004; and between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden in 2008. Ifill also moderated a Democratic debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders just last year.
“I am very sad to tell you that our dear friend and beloved colleague Gwen Ifill passed away today in hospice care in Washington,” WETA President and CEO Sharon Percy Rockefeller wrote in a staff-wide email. “I spent an hour with her this morning and she was resting comfortably, surrounded by loving family and friends… Earlier today, I conveyed to Gwen the devoted love and affection of all of us at WETA/NewsHour. Let us hold Gwen and her family even closer now in our hearts and prayers.”
Ifill was 61-years-old.
