Gwen Ifill joins the News Literacy Project’s board

“We are delighted to welcome Gwen,’’ said NPR President Vivian Schiller, who chairs the project’s board. “Her outstanding work, renown and expertise as a journalist and her stellar personal qualities make her a superb addition. We look forward to Gwen’s role in directing the project as it grows and increases its impact in the future.”

Ifill has already participated in the News Literacy Project as a co-host of an event in the spring of 2009 and has spoken to classes at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, as a journalist fellow. She is a featured speaker at one of NLP’s three upcoming Fall Forum events in Bethesda.

“As the information industry shifts and expands, it is more essential than ever that we teach the next generations of news consumers the difference between the credible and the incredible,’’ Ifill said. “As journalists, we must save ourselves.”

Ifill is the moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and a senior correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, both on PBS. The author of the 2009 best-seller The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, she has covered six presidential campaigns and moderated the vice presidential debates in 2004 and 2008.

She joined the two PBS news programs in 1999. She previously was 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.

In 2008, Washington Week was presented with a George Foster Peabody Award for its “reasonable, reliable contribution to the national discourse” during the 2008 presidential campaign, including a “road show” tour to eight cities around the country. The award citation called the show “the gold standard” of public affairs programming.