Reflecting on the Life of Gwen Ifill
CAMEROTA: Courage, fairness, and integrity, some of the words being used to remember Gwen Ifill, a late journalist whose historic career spanned three decades. She quickly became a pioneer for women and African-Americans, shattering both gender and racial barriers.</s>GWEN IFILL, LATE CNN JOURNALIST: Judy and I will be bringing you the news and analysis you've come to trust.</s>CAMEROTA: Ground breaking, history making, role model, Gwen Ifill was a veteran journalist, best known for co-anchoring "PBS News Hour."</s>JUDY WOODRUFF, CO-ANCHOR, PBS "NEWSHOUR": She was a super nova in a profession loaded with smart and talented people.</s>CAMEROTA: Her career included stints at "The Washington Post," "The New York Times," NBC News and PBS. Ifill, a pioneer for women and African-Americans in journalism.</s>IFILL: Let me turn this on its head because when we talk about race in this country, we always talk about African-Americans, people of color. I want to talk to you about white people.</s>CAMEROTA: Becoming the first African-American woman to host a major political talk show as moderator. PBS' "Washington Weekend Review" in 1999.</s>IFILL: I'm Gwen Ifill of the "NewsHour" and "Washington Week" on</s>PBS. CAMEROTA: And in 2013, once again making history, co-anchoring "NewsHour" with Judy Woodruff.</s>WOODRUFF: Good evening, I'm Judy Woodruff.</s>IFILL: And I'm Gwen Ifill. Those are just ...</s>CAMEROTA: The two women, the first to jointly lead a national nightly news broadcast. Ifill taking on the challenge of moderating two vice presidential debates and at 2016 Democratic primary debate.</s>OBAMA: She'll not only inform today's citizens, but she also inspired tomorrow's journalists.</s>CAMEROTA: While covering this year's presidential election, Ifill was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. She chose to keep that diagnosis private. She was 61 years old.</s>CUOMO: Such a, such a -- so much packed (ph) into such a short life.</s>CAMEROTA: I know and it is so shocking for us. And obviously, not her loved ones who knew about this but for people who didn't know that she was battling cancer, to hear of her death, it was just so sudden to us.</s>CUOMO: How she handled it also I think is probably a little emblematic of how she did her job. She never made the news about her in any way. And she was suffering with a really hard form of cancer. She only took time when she had to. And she came back after treatment and interviewed the president of the United States. That takes a lot of gumption.</s>CAMEROTA: Yeah.</s>CUOMO: It really does. Wow. Our best to her friends and family. All right, we're going to take a quick break here. House democrats, they are calling on Donald Trump to rescind his latest appointment to the White House, Steve Bannon. Why? What is it about Steve Bannon that is a legitimate concern, and what is just political hype? We're going to talk to a man who knows and worked with Bannon well, next.