People of Color, Celebs React to Gwen Ifill’s Death

By Kenrya Rankin Nov 15, 2016

Pioneering journalist Gwen Ifill died yesterday (November 14) at the age of 61. Per an announcement from PBS, Ifill died after nearly a year of battling cancer. She was the co-anchor and managing editor for PBS NewsHour, where she worked to “tell the stories that shed light and spur action.” Along with Judy Woodruff, she was half of the first all-women anchoring team on a network newscast.

PBS published “Remembering Gwen” yesterday in tribute to the African-American journalist. From that article:

Gwen covered eight presidential campaigns, moderated two vice-presidential debates and served for 17 years on the NewsHour and as moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week.” In her early career, she covered politics and city hall for some of the country’s most prominent newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Baltimore Evening Sun, carving a path as one of the most accomplished journalists in U.S. media. She won countless awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Fourth Estate Award, and was the best-selling author of “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.”

Ifill inspired many Black journalists who aspired to live out the words she told a Washingtonian reporter in 2015: “We can’t expect the world to get better by itself. We have to create something we can leave the next generation.”

Here are just some of the tributes posted in remembrance of her life and how she influenced the nation.

 

The November 14 episode of PBS NewsHour focused primarily on Ifill’s life and career. Watch it below.