Journalist Gwen Ifill Shares Insights on Race, Politics at GW

By Julia Parmley

Gwen Ifill, moderator and managing editor of PBS’s Washington Week, discussed her bestselling book, the historic election of President Barack Obama, and the challenges she overcame to become a journalist Feb. 12 at GW’s Jack Morton Auditorium. Hosted by Frank Sesno, GW professor of media and public affairs and CNN special correspondent, the event was the latest installment of the GW School of Media and Public Affairs’ Public Affairs Project Conversation Series.

Ifill called Obama’s historic election a “handy backdrop” for her new book on race and politics around the country, New York Times bestseller The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. “This book arrived at a unique moment, a crossroads in American history, at which people were curious about something that I’ve been thinking and gathering string on my whole career,” said Ifill. “People are interested in politics again and have a newly revived interest in race and talking about race and how it is integrated in our society.”

As Americans are increasingly re-examining race and its role in politics, ideological conflicts are surfacing between older and younger African Americans, such as the high-profile one between Rev. Jesse Jackson and his son Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), said Ifill. “[The older generation’s] lives were shaped by denial, things they couldn’t get, places they couldn’t sit, the lunch counters they couldn’t get served at,” said Ifill. “They had to change the law in order to get access. Once they changed the law, their children just merrily walked down the road. Their children had different fights. It was about enforcing the law, but it wasn’t about making the law.”

Ifill also talked about her coverage of Obama’s inauguration on the National Mall Jan. 20. Sesno showed a clip of a woman Ifill interviewed that day, Eugenia Pete, who told Ifill that she now believed her son could do anything. “[Pete’s] is a voice you never hear. Just by asking what she thought came this incredibly eloquent outpouring of emotion when talking about her son,” she said.

Ifill also discussed her hosting duties at the vice presidential debate last October. “My job that night was not to grill Sarah Palin or to let her off the hook; it was to conduct a debate between two people,” explained Ifill. “I was nervous and a little bit concerned about performance issues, but I had great faith in people watching to know when their answers had been answered and when they had not.”

Ifill said Obama is facing significant challenges now at least in part because “he is figuring out how hard bipartisanship is.”

“Every president comes in and says, ‘I’m going to change Washington, and I’m going to do it the day I arrive,’” she said. “Obama is getting his first taste of how hard changing the direction of the steamship is. It doesn’t mean he isn’t going to change it in the long run, but I think it’s a lot tougher than he thought it would be.”

Ifill told the audience that she was tested many times as she worked to become a journalist. At her first job as a Boston Herald intern in the 1970s, Ifill came to work one day to find a racist note at her desk. To make atones, the editors hired her full time, and Ifill said this “gave her a shot,” adding, “I had to use this unfortunate beginning and take every opportunity that came to me.”

Following the event, Ifill signed copies of her book at a post-reception sponsored by the GW Alumni Association, Graduate School of Political Management, and Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu