Gwen Ifill of Washington Week in Review

Exploring Politics and Race in the Age of Obama

By Marla E. Schwartz

It’s that time of year again when everyone begins making fall plans. It’s never too late to keep in mind all of the exciting events that happen in South Florida this time of year. One thing is for sure is that it’s time to make sure that you’ve marked down in your calendar the upcoming 27^th edition of the Miami Book Fair International (MBFI) taking place at Miami-Dade College from November 19 through November 21, 2010.  If you haven’t marked it down – go ahead – do it now and then return to this story. In order to whet your appetite even more than a mere reminder, here’s an introduction and an interview with one of last year’s illustrious author’s present at the book fair, Gwen Ifill.

If you’re unfamiliar with Gwen’s numerous accomplishments brace yourself because there’s a whole lot and they’re all very impressive. She has worked as a reporter for The Baltimore Evening Sun, The Boston Herald, The New York Times and The Washington Post as well as working as the chief congressional and political correspondent for NBC News.  But she’s most notably known these days for moderating the 2004 and 2008 Vice-Presidential Debates.  You can also watch her every Friday night at 7 PM as the managing editor and moderator of Washington Week In Review, the longest-running news & public affairs program on PBS, and/or you can watch her reports as one of the senior correspondents on The NewsHour (PBS), formerly known as The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.

Gwen is a native of NYC and a graduate of Simmons College in Boston. She has received almost two-dozen honorary doctorates from such prestigious universities as Georgetown University, Howard University, Long Island University, and her alma mater. Additionally, she has been honored for her unparalleled work in the field of journalism by many organizations including the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center, The National Association of Black Journalists and Boston’s Ford Hall Forum. She was mentioned in Ebony Magazine’s list of 150 Most Influential African Americans and won the George Foster Peabody Award after conducting live broadcasts of her ten-city tour of Washington Week.

She spoke about her book ‘The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama’ at MBFI 2009 and then answered audience

questions before sitting down and responding specifically to questions for AroundWellington.com readers. Gwen’s book examines the past, present and even surmises future outcomes when writing about politics in the age of President Obama. She’s very insightful while exploring the journey that led to the political breakthrough that’s mentioned in the title of her book.  The book basically explores the injustices experienced by African Americans bringing about the civil rights movement to today’s aspiring African American political wannabe’s and powerhouses and how the Civil Rights movement played a pivotal role in allowing these individuals to obtain office in the first place. Gwen broaches an important topic not only for an American audience but also to a vast worldwide group of spectators who closely watch the U.S. and all of the choices our leaders make on our behalves.

Gwen’s calm, easy-going, intelligent demeanor that she has cultivated for herself in her various incarnations in the news industry was evident, but luckily this book tour allowed her a moment of reflection and provided her with an added sense of comfort that enabled her to simply be herself; a charming, wise, honorable, affable woman with a delightful sense of humor.

“As I began to get to get to the bottom as to what it was that people meant when they talked about racial identity, I realized it was a lot simpler then we were making it out to be ‘cause we have a habit of talking about race always in terms of conflict,” Gwen said in her speech to those gathered to hear her speak about her book. “When black folk looked at black achievers who suddenly came out of nowhere and they were being embraced by white people – of all things, they said ‘wait a second, are you still gonna represent me, are you gonna represent my interests?’ When white voters or voters of any other color looked at another candidate who wasn’t like them and said, ‘they’re only speaking to black issues’ or ‘they seemed to be aligned with radical types in their community are they speaking to me?’ – which goes to (the) very fundamental rule of politics which is in order to get elected you have to convince the majority of the people that you’re asking to vote for you that you will represent them. That you understand where they’re coming from and what it is they need.”

“This is probably a lesson I first learned when covering Jessie Jackson’s campaign in 1988 when I went and covered for a short time Pat Robertson’s campaign,” Gwen explained. “Now you would think that Pat Robertson and Jessie Jackson never the twain shall meet, right?  Both preachers, but other than that, maybe not so much. But I went into these audiences and I discovered that the people who came to see them had more in common than they had different, other than skin color. They all wanted someone to speak to them, to speak for them. They felt that the families were falling a part; they wanted someone to speak for middle class values, black folk and white folk. So they had a lot in common and I thought maybe me all have more in common about what we’re asking of in our leaders than we admit and race and our conflicts about race in this country get in the way.”

And this was just the beginning of her cogent presentation at the book fair. If you were unable to attend Gwen’s appearance and you’d like to see it, please go to Book TV at http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11128/2009+Miami+Book+Fair+Gwen+Ifill+The+BreakThrough.aspx and you’ll be able to watch it.

Gwen spoke her mind about the issues contained in her book and kept the audience members listening intently as they devoured her every word. She then thoughtfully responded to the Q and A period with this assemblage, and now it’s time for her to answer some questions for us about Washington Week, her book and other interesting topics.

AW: I notice that you have a Facebook page. Is it really true that people can actually interact with you?

Gwen Ifill: No. It’s a Facebook page for Washington Week and our associate producer maintains the page. I’m not on Facebook, personally.  Someone will respond, but it’s unlikely it’ll be me. I don’t do Twitter. There are already too many shortcuts in life.

AW: As moderator and managing editor of Washington Week, do you actually choose the guests or do you have a staff that does this for you?

GI: It’s a collegial process. I have a producer, senior producer and an associate producer – basically a huge staff of three and we sit around and email each other as the week goes on with subjects, we start with the stories. My senior producer keeps track of what all of our couple dozen regular panelists are piecing together and she sends me links to everything they’re working on. The first cut is what the story is, the second cut is whose writing it, the third is whose available and then there’s a fourth cut which is what is the best mix of panelists to place around the table. We try to create a little but of a chemistry experiment when we make sure we have the right mix of hot and cold or whatever, so that we make the most interesting program possible on Friday night.

AW: It’s nice to watch a show where people aren’t shouting at each other about politics.

GI: Yes. And that’s our goal. There are so many places where you can hear shouting and we really think that by Friday night our job is not to regurgitate everything you’ve already heard, but to explain why it matters and what happened behind the scenes. When I first started doing Washington Week I was a reporter for The New York Times covering the White House, covering politics and I enjoyed coming on Friday nights to the studio because I would open my notebook and say ‘here’s the stuff I didn’t get to put into the newspaper that’s interesting, here’s what the senator said to me when I ran into him on the elevator’. The whys and the underpinnings, a lot of that goes into blogs now. There are very few things that go unpublished anymore but what we still have that you can’t get on the blog is the interaction of the panelists around the table. On a good, good night we feel like it’s eavesdropping on a really cool dinner party.

AW: Exactly. I like that idea.

GI: That’s what we want. Unfortunately many people tell me that they watch the program while they’re drinking a glass of wine and I said to someone once ‘well I don’t get to drink, that’s not fair’ so he sent me some wine. I liked that. That was a very nice thing to do.

AW: Other people need to send you things. Maybe something from Boston Chicken?

GI: Yes, something warm and tasty.

AW: When did you first become interested in journalism or when did you have that first spark of knowing that’s what you wanted to do?

GI: I was probably nine-years-old. I always liked to write. I always liked to tell stories. When I started at the NewsHour I got a letter from my fourth grade teacher who not only remembered me but also found an old workbook of mine that I had written back in the day, when I was nine-years-old and I realized that I was a pretty good little writer even then. I wanted to tell stories and I wanted to tell them with a deadline and I wanted to ask questions. I grew up in a house where we watched the news and we read the paper and I understood the connection between what was happening out there and my life because it was the sixties. So journalism just seemed a natural place for all that curiosity to land.

AW: Would you say that this particular fourth grade teacher you had was one of your role models? Do you remember her at all?

GI: No. But my brother remembered her and I was flattered that she remembered me. You never know when you’re going to make an impression.

AW: Did you have any teachers that were role models for you?

GI: Oh yes. I did, especially when I got to college. My freshman journalism professor who I stay in touch with to this day was a crusty old newspaper man who just basically came to class and told stories and then he’d give us tests about all this information and tell us to go write a lead. And if you got it wrong, then he’d give you an F.  It turns out that that’s not exactly the way it works, but it was a good and ruthless way in having us distill our thinking in the search for the most important story to tell based on a lot of different information. And he will tell you now, he gave me a C or two, and he remembers that I grew in my skills as I grew in my career. But being around someone like that who brought the romance of a newsroom to me made me always really want to do it even more. My first internship in a big newspaper was actually a newspaper he worked on, The Boston Globe.

AW: You attended Simmons College. Was this your first choice?

GI: It was my only choice.  It was a smallish school in a big city, so I knew that socially I could still get out. It was a women’s college which at the time wasn’t my priority but in retrospect I’m really glad I did it because it taught me how to be assertive and how to be in control and assume that I could be. And I ran into a woman today who went to Simmons. She lives in Miami. Although it’s a small school we get around a lot. All of us turn out to be very interesting women who seize life.

AW: That’s a nice motto. It should be the school’s motto.

GI: Yah. You don’t appreciate it until after you get out of college, though.

AW: If you could go back in time and meet any politician to interview who would it be and why?

GI: I think it would be fun to interview Long (Huey Pierce Long, Jr.) who was the Governor of Louisiana. There were all these larger than life politicians with big appetites and a slight disregard for rules. It would’ve been a hell of a lot of fun to cover. It’s nice to cover do-gooders who stick to doing all the right things for all the right reasons but it’s a lot more fun to cover the bad boys. I would just love to have been, now who knows how he would’ve reacted having a young black woman asking questions and in retrospect I have no idea. But assuming for a moment that I could have been on Jack Kennedy’s plane during the 1960 campaign in a time when candidate’s really did interact with reporters more than they do now, I would’ve loved that – I just like the idea – now I don’t know if you ever know if I would’ve appreciated it at the time, but the way you phrased the question if I could plant myself into the lives and times of people – I just look at the candidates, people I know now who covered Bobby Kennedy talked about how amazing that campaign was and I would’ve just liked to have seen it. I don’t know if I want to be more than a fly on the wall.

AW: I know you’re so busy but what was your writing schedule like when you were writing this particular book?

GI: I worked every waking minute of my day. I would write in the morning. I would write at night. Before I started writing the book I interviewed a lot of people who had written books and said, ‘so how do you do it?’ and everyone had a different answer.  I realized what I had to do was make up my own schedule. I was covering a consequential political campaign at the same time – which overlapped with what I was writing about. I just wrote every spare moment. I didn’t watch much television, I didn’t see friends, I didn’t go to movies – no Facebook, no anything and it worked out. But I would not do it that way again.

AW: How would you do it?

GI: I would take time off. It was really hard to do it and work.

AW: When is the first time you met President Obama?

GI: I met him in an interesting way. I met him on the podium at the 2004 Democratic National Convention minutes after he had given his big speech.  I was covering it for the NewsHour and we had pre-arranged to have this conversation with this guy who at the time looked like he was going to be the next Senator for Illinois. He was the keynote speaker of the night and we did a virtual gavel together covering him at the convention. My assignment that night was to be at the podium and I agreed and arranged to interview him, thinking he’s the keynote speaker. I didn’t know what I was going to be witnessing. I got to stand in a place where I saw the place erupt and I got to see his face the minute he and Michelle walked off and they had this glow. They were quite blown away by the reaction as well. So I asked them something really piercing like, ‘how do you feel?’ – I don’t know. And his answer was ‘I’m just glad I didn’t screw up’. And I found out months later that that’s exactly what Michelle had said to him right before he walked out, which was ‘don’t screw up, buddy.’ I found out later that was the full circle of what had happened between them backstage.

AW: That’s a nice moment to be a part of.

GI: It was. It was.

AW: Some people say that it’s difficult to interview people whose political leanings are different from your own and journalists shouldn’t have any political aspirations or leanings or opinions, but I think that’s really difficult as an American not to have an opinion on something – what advice would you give to people who are starting out in a similar career path as you to deal with this situation?

GI: I think that having an opinion is different from not reaching a conclusion. You have to always, always be curious. You always have to assume that somebody may have a different opinion. If your opinions are so over-whelming then it’s impossible for you to hear what someone who disagrees with you has to say and you shouldn’t be a journalist. You should do something else very useful with your time, but you shouldn’t be a journalist because the key – I mean, what’s lost so much in what passes for journalism right now is that people form their opinions first and then argue with you no matter what point you make. That’s not journalism it’s argument to me. Journalism is always keeping your ears open for possibilities. I tell people that I’m a skeptic and not a cynic because cynic’s have made up their minds and closed them off where skeptics always have another question, ‘well what about this and what about that’ – which is not the same thing as agreeing with you or disagreeing with you it’s just questioning. I get this question actually a lot from young people who have grown up in an era where all this argument is going on. They find it hard to believe that I can interview people without having an opinion. And I just do because as long as I prize my curiosity over my opinion I will always be able to listen to you and you know what, maybe I’m wrong. I want to leave open that possibility. It’s not really very hard for me because I really want to know what people have to say. I want to hear it. It’s apparently hard for people but it’s not hard for me.

AW: When Queen Latifah portrayed you on Saturday Night Live did you watch it?

GI: Uh-huh. I knew it was going to happen. I’d been told about it. She had played me four years before after the 2004 Vice-Presidential Debate which people forget actually because it wasn’t as notorious a debate. I was just relieved it wasn’t Kenan Thompson – the only other option was being played by a guy in drag if they wanted someone black. So I was happy to have her – give me a cover girl anytime. She was very funny. She’s very generous. I had broken my ankle just before the debate and she actually called me the night after my surgery to make sure I was all right. That was very sweet. 

AW: How long did it take you to heal?

GI: It still aches. I was six weeks off my feet and had physical therapy for another six months. It was a bad break but you know what it allowed me to stay completely focused on the debate and not on all of the other dust-ups that were going on around the debate. The night of the debate I had a splint on and I was going to have to go for surgery the next week and I couldn’t take any pain medication before the debate because then people would say I was on drugs. But you know what adrenalin is a wonderful deal. The morning after the debate I actually did Oprah and she asked me if I was in pain.  And I said, ‘you know what, adrenalin is a fabulous thing’ and I was just able to get through it. I felt great but I kept alarming my friends because I was swinging my leg around.

AW: Is this the first time you were on The Oprah Winfrey Show? Is this the first time you met Oprah?

GI: We did it by remote.  I was still in St. Louis. I had met her years before – she used to work in Baltimore when I worked in Baltimore. She was on the local ABC affiliate doing a show.

AW: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

GI: It’s just that one of the points I make when I make presentations like I did today is that I really like to say is that we could be at a healthy time in our society when it comes to talking about race. We most often talk about race when it’s about conflict and negativity and whether it’s Barack Obama or any of these other African American politicians I talk about in the book we have this option not to look at race more broadly as a positive. I don’t see my race as a burden and I don’t see why anybody else should see it that way.  There are bad things still happening, there are points of conflict where we know that were not close racially, but we could actually find a way of embracing our non-post-racialness by saying the politics of difference are something that strengthens us instead of weakens us. And that’s where this book left me. I think it’s really possible.

Gwen Ifill is indeed not only a very bright, inquisitive and accomplished journalist but she’s someone who has a heart of gold and a woman you want to have in your corner. If you haven’t already picked up a copy of her book, ‘The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama’ I encourage you to do so, especially if you happen to be at any Books and Books (MBFI Co-Founder Mitchell Kaplan owns and operates these bookstores and brings a host of authors to speak and sign autographs to his various locations throughout the year, including Gwen Ifill) location or independent bookseller. If you’d like further information on her career please go to this website: www.gwenifillfansite.com. Furthermore, don’t forget to check out the link to MBFI at, www.miamibookfair.com.

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A native of Toledo, OH and a graduate of Kent State University, Marla E. Schwartz is a Senior Writer for Miami Living Magazine and is currently a freelance writer for AroundWellington.com and Lighthouse Point Magazine. Her photographs have appeared in numerous Ohio publications, as well as in Miami Living, The Miami Herald, The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post. She has had numerous plays published and produced around the country. Her short play, America’s Working? was produced in Los Angeles at both the First Stage and the Lone Star Ensemble theater companies, in Florida at Lynn University and then at an off-Broadway playhouse in NYC. Her piece, The Lunch Time Café, was a finalist for the Heideman Award, Actors Theatre of Louisville. Please check out the re-prints of her interviews with authors Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson and Dexter novelist Jeff Lindsay in the upcoming October 2010 issue of Duff Brenna’s ServingHouse: A Journal of Literary Arts at www.servinghousejournal.com. Please feel free to contact her at marlaschwartz@att.net.