Gwen Ifill to Receive the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism

Contact: Doug Gavel
Phone: (617) 495-1115
Date: March 16, 2009

CAMBRIDGE, MA. – Gwen Ifill will be honored for her distinguished print and broadcast journalism career by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy on March 17 at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The event will begin at 6 p.m. in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge.

Ifill is moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week” and senior correspondent for “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS. Her new book, “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,” was published in January 2009.

During her career Ifill has covered six U.S. Presidential campaigns, and brought “Washington Week” to live audiences around the country as part of a 10-city tour during the 2008 campaign season. She also served as moderator of the Vice Presidential debates in 2004 and 2008.

Ifill joined “Washington Week” and “The NewsHour” in 1999, interviewing newsmakers and reporting on issues ranging from foreign affairs to politics. 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.

Past recipients of the Goldsmith Career Award include Ted Turner, Seymour Hersh, Christiane Amanpour, Linda Greenhouse and Peter Jennings.

The Goldsmith Awards Program is funded by an annual grant from the Goldsmith Fund of the Greenfield Foundation.

Journalists interested in covering the Forum should contact the Kennedy School Communications Office at (617) 495-1115 to reserve space on the press riser.

A live Vivex video/audio feed of this Forum is available for broadcasters.

This event will be web-streamed live: http://www.iop.harvard.edu/Programs/John-F.-Kennedy-Jr.-Forum.

To view this and other events after their conclusion, visit the Forum archive: http://www.iop.harvard.edu/Multimedia-Center/By-Program/JFK-Jr.-Forum.

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