6/29/2023 0 Comments The breakthrough by gwen ifill![]() She navigated the conundrum that black journalists then and now confront: how to respond to the need for informed coverage of racial issues without being confined by it. ![]() Ifill began her journalistic career covering the chaotic aftermath of court-mandated busing in Boston. ![]() She was part of a generation that emerged in the wake of the civil-rights movement, but she was not too distant from the tumult of that era to take its gains for granted. Ifill, the daughter of an African Methodist Episcopal minister, grew up in parsonages and public housing on the East Coast, and graduated from Simmons College, in Boston, in 1977. She came of age at a moment when the default voice of authority in journalism-male, white, avuncular-was entrenched, and helped to quietly upend those presumptions. Ifill, who was gracious even with those she strongly disagreed with, managed to calibrate professionalism and warmth, intellect and humility, and a keen sense of humor. It is a particular cruelty that Ifill, who was a standard-bearer for journalism, a mentor of young reporters, and a profoundly decent colleague, should depart now, when the country has never been more in need of those qualities. ![]() Long before Monday, when Gwen Ifill, the renowned PBS journalist, died, at sixty-one, of cancer, this year had begun to look like a bouquet of hardships. ![]()
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