Why Many of Us Will Miss Gwen Ifill
Like other friends and fans of Gwen Ifill, I did not expect to be talking about her in the past tense. Not this soon.
The groundbreaking, award-winning "PBS NewsHour" co-anchor died Nov. 14 in hospice care in Washington. The cause was endometrial cancer, according to her brother Roberto Ifill.
She was 61. That surprised me. With her relentlessly youthful zest for life she didn't look that old. Yet it was shocking to hear that she had died so young.
Those of us who were fortunate enough to have known her or worked with her can speak of her deeply held belief in the finest tenets of journalism, such as accuracy, fairness and a quest for balance without resorting to false equivalencies.
But what was most memorable about her was her unshakeable and thoroughly engaging on-camera presence in her two jobs since 1999: co-anchor with Judy Woodruff on "PBS NewsHour" and moderator on PBS' "Washington Week."
As a black woman breaking barriers in major news media dominated by white men, she always worked in a spotlight. But she wore it well.
Her early narrative is legendary, particularly to other aspiring women and journalists of color.
Her career began with what many nowadays would call an act of racial intimidation.
Working as a summer intern at the Boston Herald American during the city's racially tense 1970s, she found a note in her workspace that said "(N-word) go home."
"My first response was: I wonder who this is for?" she told the Washington Post years later.
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