A groundbreaking journalist, Gwen L. Ifill is a native of New York City and a graduate of Simmons College in Boston. She served as a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun and the Boston Herald American, later becoming 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. At the time of the interview, she was moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent for The PBS NewsHour.

In addition to her contributions in print and televised news, Ifill moderated the 2004 and 2008 Vice Presidential debates. In 2009, she published The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. Ifill has received the George Foster Peabody Award and more than a dozen honorary doctorates. She has also been honored for her work by the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Harvard\'s Joan Shorenstein Center, The National Association of Black Journalists, Boston's Ford Hall Forum, and was included in Ebony Magazine's list of 150 Most Influential African Americans.

Ifill served on the boards of the Harvard University Institute of Politics and the Committee to Protect Journalists and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Ifill reported on immigration reform, trends in entertainment, economic stability in the U.S., and more.  In 2016, along with Judy Woodruff, she moderated the Democratic presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, becoming the first team of women to moderate a presidential debate.

Gwen Ifill died on November 14, 2016.