Matt Raymond from the Library of Congress speaks with Gwen Ifill, who will appear at the 2009 National Book Festival in the History & Biography pavilion on September 26, 2009, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Biography

Gwen Ifill says she always knew she wanted to be a journalist. The moderator and managing editor of Public Broadcasting’s “Washington Week” and senior correspondent for “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” Ifill is the best-selling author of “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,” (2009). She also moderated the vice presidential debates during the presidential elections in 2004 and 2008. Before coming to PBS, she was chief congressional and political correspondent for NBC News, White House correspondent for The New York Times and a local and national political reporter for the Washington Post. She also reported for the Baltimore Evening Sun and the Boston Herald American.