In what continues to be a bewilderingly awful seven days for grace and civility in America, comes the news that veteran journalist Gwen Ifill died from cancer Monday at the age of 61. Ifill was a longtime print journalist on the politics beat who went on to moderate two vice-presidential debates and host PBS' "Washington Week in Review." Her career culminated with a three-year stint as co-anchor of PBS "NewsHour."
That we should lose Ifill the same week we contemplate the reality of a Trump presidency (including the aspect of an avowed white nationalist, misogynist propagandist as White House chief strategist) is particularly heartbreaking. We need Ifill's tough, fair, and nuanced analysis now more than ever.
Did we mention tough? Watch the clip above. In the spring of 2007, radio shock jock Don Imus ignited a firestorm of rebuke when he referred to the mostly black members of Rutgers' national championship-winning women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hoes."
The following week Ifill appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press." She had a special viewpoint on Imus and his racially abusive "humor." In 1993 she was covering the White House for The New York Timeswhen Imus referred to her as a "cleaning lady," after Ifill unintentionally spurned his producers' request to appear on his show. Specifically: "Isn't The Times wonderful. It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House."
The episode of "Meet the Press" is awkward, initially because of the Times' conservative columnist David Brooks stupefying attempt to label Imus' remarks as "comedy." (To which Ifill witheringly interjects: "Doesn't comedy have to be funny David?") John Harwood is next, opining that "it's hard to know where to draw the line" on remarks like Imus' until Ifill breaks her stone-faced side-eye to correct him ("Except it's not really hard to know where to draw the line") before launching into a passionate albeit constrained reproach to her fellow panelists whitemansplaining.
Ifill goes on to call both host Tim Russert and Brooks to task for their silence on Imus: "There's been radio silence, from a lot of people who've done this program, who could've spoken up and said, 'I find this offensive,' or 'I didn't know.' These people didn't speak up. Tim, we didn't hear that much from you; David, we didn't hear from you."
As we enter the era of attempting to fight the normalization of the moral disaster that is Trump's presidency (a job that prominent journalists are already failing at), Ifill's calm but trenchant rebukes are an example of the sort of unyielding commitment to truth and diverse reporting it will take to expose the outrages of this incoming administration. This is not the time to play nice or allow demagoguery and ignorance to go unchallenged. Rest in peace, Ms. Ifill. Let's hope we're up to this trial without you.
