15 Pioneering Female Journalists

LOS ANGELES, CA – JULY 22: Gwen Ifill, Washington Week, PBS NewsHour speaks onstage at the ‘PBS Election Coverage’ panel during day 2 of the PBS portion of the 2012 Summer TCA Tour held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 22, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

4. Gwen Ifill

Gwen Ifill forged a remarkable career in a field that, despite the efforts of earlier reporters, was still dominated by white men. While an intern at the Boston Herald-American, Ifill found a note on her desk that read, “n____r go home”. She did not, in fact, do home; instead Ifill went ahead and gained a series of increasingly important positions. These included jobs at the Baltimore Evening Sun, the Washington Post, and The New York Times.

Her first television job was with NBC, though she would become most remembered for her work with PBS. There, she was the moderator for Washington Week in Review and the senior correspondent for PBS NewsHour. She was also the first black woman to moderate a vice presidential debate, specifically the 2004 debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. She also moderated the following vice presidential debate in 2008 between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

Ifill gained acclaim for her journalistic integrity, including a prestigious Peabody Award. In 2013, she became co-anchor and co-managing editor of NewsHour with Judy Woodruff. Along with Woodruff, Ifill became a member of the first team of women to moderate a presidential candidate debate in 2016, between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Ifill died of complications from breast and endometrial cancer in November of that year, aged only 61.