Image via IWMF

Thank you, Gwen Ifill, for blazing trails in journalism!

“Gwen Ifill’s unflinching pursuit of the truth with grace and strength set a standard we hope young women will aspire to. We will miss her voice.” — Meredith Walker, Smart Girls Co-Founder

Gwen Ifill was one of the most preeminent political journalists and TV anchors of our time. Her love of TV news came early. As a child, her family convened nightly to watch the news and she and her siblings were expected to understand current events. As an adult, throughout her career, she continuously transformed the face of journalism:

• In the early ’80s, she was a print reporter for the Boston Herald American and the Baltimore Evening Sun, breaking into what was, at the time, a field dominated by white men.
• In 1999, she became the first African-American woman to host a national political TV talk show: PBS’s Washington Week.
• In 2013, Ifill and Judy Woodruff became the co-anchors of PBS News Hour. This marked the first female co-anchor team in network broadcast history.
• At the 2013 International Women in Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism and Lifetime Achievement awards, Ms. Ifill said:

“We would like for the day to come when it’s not news anymore, when two women sitting side by side, who have the depth of experience that Judy and I bring to the subject at hand and to the task at hand, would just be another thing that girls see every day, but they don’t see it every day right now…And I know we’re both really proud, and I’ve gotten amazing reaction from young women who are touched by the idea that this is break through for them, that they’re going to see something different. So we want to live up to that.”

Today, PBS NewsHour’s executive producer, Sara Just, published the following on PBS.org:

“Gwen was a standard bearer for courage, fairness and integrity in an industry going through seismic change. She was a mentor to so many across the industry and her professionalism was respected across the political spectrum. She was a journalist’s journalist and set an example for all around her.

So many people in the audience felt that they knew and adored her. She had a tremendous combination of warmth and authority. She was stopped on the street routinely by people who just wanted to give her a hug and considered her a friend after years of seeing her on tv.

We will forever miss her terribly.”

During his press conference this afternoon, President Obama shared the following praise for Ifill:

“She was an especially powerful role model for young woman and girls who admired her integrity, her tenacity, and her intellect and for whom she blazed a trail as one half of the first all female anchor team on network news.”

And countless others have expressed their gratitude and deep admiration and respect of Ms. Ifill: