Politics not as usual suits Ifill just fine
The host of PBS's Washington Week enjoys having the voters calling the shots in a remarkable election year.
By Eric Deggans, Times TV/Media Critic
Published February 14, 2008
Gwen Ifill seems almost giddy as she notes the most gratifying thing about covering the most unpredictable presidential election in recent memory:
So many pundits are getting it wrong.
"There's been great satisfaction for me in watching all the people who make a career of being predictive, you know, swallow their tongue time after time," said Ifill, longtime leader of PBS' reporters-and-politics program Washington Week, from her office in Alexandria, Va.
"I love having the voters tell us what they think rather than me telling them what they ought to think," added Ifill, 52. "Some people really want to get their information from people telling them what to think. Some people want to get their information by hearing people fight. And some people want to get their information from hearing what people they know and trust think about something."
Fans of Ifill's no-frills show will recognize that attitude; eschewing insider theatrics to focus on substantive conversation among experienced journalists.
She came to Washington Week in 1999 as the first black woman to host a major national political TV show, after stints reporting for NBC News, the New York Times and the Washington Post. It was an awkward time, with rumors that management wanted to stir up on-camera arguments, McLaughlin Group-style.
Instead, she crafted a show one friend said felt like a dinner party.
This year, Ifill has teamed with AARP to bring her show to eight cities, including a stop Friday in St. Petersburg. I caught her between bites of lunch to talk about modern political journalism.
What's been the toughest aspect of covering this year's presidential elections?
I think it's keeping your eyes wide open and not getting caught up in any particular storyline, because just when you think there's a storyline that has been settled, it switches on you.
Originally, we thought this was a race that was going to be over in a few weeks. Now, a wider, broader diversity of people get a say. Every candidate has to test him- or herself in ways they hadn't anticipated at every turn.
There seems to be a lot of dissatisfaction with election coverage. Are too many reporters relying on polls and conventional wisdom to judge an unpredictable race?
There were some cases when the polls were wrong, but there were a lot more where they were actually pretty much dead-on. What you want to get from a poll is what people are thinking and what's driving their decisionmaking. Who's going to win - that's the least reliable part of exit polls. It's all how you use the information, not whether the information itself was faulty.
We're talking just a few hours after Republican Mitt Romney announced he was leaving the race. Does that give Republicans an advantage?
Republicans usually do settle faster. On the other hand, every single primary we've seen has shown record turnout for Democrats and a passion gap - which shows Democrats far more likely to turn out in greater numbers with far greater enthusiasm for both candidates than we've seen on the Republican side. There are so many more Democrats engaged and so many of them are happy if either candidate gets the nomination - the Republicans are going to have to make up that enthusiasm gap.
Does it help your reporting work to go on the road with this show?
It actually injects a jolt of excitement into what we do every week. When I started Washington Week, I remember I always had to justify to people - including some PBS stations - why what I did mattered to them. They were far more interested in Antiques Roadshow than what I did. This year, there's a lot of interest.
Why are people so fired up now?
I think a big part of this - both Republicans and Democrats have been unhappy with the direction of the country. Some aren't happy with the economy, some aren't happy with war, some aren't happy with the president; but whatever it is, people's unhappiness is what drives them to greater engagement.
Does this race feel any different for you, because you're a black woman covering the first woman and first black man with a real chance of becoming president?
If I felt differently, then I would obviously be alienated from all the years I spent covering white men (laughs). I've spent too long in the business trying to school myself to see things straight down the middle to slip off the straight and narrow now.
It seems some pundits have had real problems talking about these new types of candidates without sounding insulting or condescending.
I do think that everything we do in life - I call it the veil of experience - we bring to it. And as a black woman covering this campaign, I do hear things differently than some of my white male counterparts might. You hear the code words more. I would like to think that no matter what happens to Barack Obama's campaign or Hillary Clinton's campaign, that it's forcing kind of a more careful use of language. I saw (MSNBC anchor) Chris Matthews had to apologize about something he said people took the wrong the way about Clinton's campaign - the land mines are as great talking about gender as race.
When shock jock Don Imus faced criticism for using a racial epithet to refer to Rutgers University's women's basketball team, you wrote a powerful piece for the New York Times referencing how Imus insulted you (the joke said the Times was sending the cleaning lady to cover the White House). Do you have an opinion on his return to radio?
No, actually. I never called for him to be fired. Man's earning a living, people want to watch him, which is fine. I was very careful then and now to make sure this was about the girls and not about him. As you can imagine, a lot of people wanted me to come on television and talk about Imus. I wasn't on an anti-Imus campaign and I didn't want what I was saying to get conflated into that.
Will you ever appear on his show?
I'm busy (laughs). I turn down far more interesting offers every day.
Eric Deggans can be reached at deggans@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8521. See his blog at blogs.tampabay.com/media.
IF YOU GO
Gwen Ifill
The Washington Week host brings her PBS show on Friday to the Mahaffey Theater, 400 First St. S, St. Petersburg, for two tapings beginning at 3 p.m. Visit www.wedu.org or call (813) 254-9338, ext. 2234, for free tickets.