Yamiche Alcindor has been named the new moderator of PBS’s Washington Week, the public affairs show that’s been a staple of DC’s political media landscape for more than a half century.
Alcindor, who most recently served as a correspondent for PBS’s daily news program, NewsHour, is assuming the role once held by her mentor, Gwen Ifill, the pioneering journalist who in 1999 became the first Black woman in America to host a nationally televised public affairs talk show.
“I know how much ‘Washington Week’ meant to Gwen, and how much she put her stamp on the legacy of the show,” Alcindor said Tuesday in an interview with The New York Times, which broke the news of her new role. “I also feel this incredible responsibility to think deeply about taking this on and making it a show that people want to watch, that people will feel is living up to its great legacy.”
Gwen Ifill died at in 2016, age 61, after a battle with cancer, according to The New York Times.
Alcindor becomes the 9th moderator in the show’s history, according to Axios. Her immediate predecessor, Washington Post reporter Robert Costa, had hosed the show since 2017. He departed the show after announcing in December 2020 that he would be working on a book about the end of the Trump presidency with Bob Woodward.
I’m honored to become the next moderator of @washingtonweek, a show that meant so much to Gwen Ifill when she helmed this chair. My guiding light will be focusing on the impact of politics on everyday people and vulnerable populations. Join me this Friday. https://t.co/6WqpjcIL6k
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) May 4, 2021
In a post to Twitter announcing her new position, Alcindor said that her guiding light would be “focusing on the impact of politics on everyday people and vulnerable populations.”
Her first show as full time moderator is this Friday.
Luke Mullins is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine focusing on the people and institutions that control the city’s levers of power. He has written about the Koch Brothers’ attempt to take over The Cato Institute, David Gregory’s ouster as moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, the collapse of Washington’s Metro system, and the conflict that split apart the founders of Politico.
