PBS’s Gwen Ifill to Explain What Is Really Going On in Washington

Bradlee Lecture
Examines Politics, Policy, and Reality

7 pm - Thursday, April 14
Auerbach Auditorium at St. Mary’s Hall
St. Mary's College of Maryland

Press Release #11-067
(St. Mary’s City, MD) March 30, 2011 — Each week, Gwen Ifill, moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week” and senior correspondent for “The (PBS) NewsHour,” brings award-winning journalists together to analyze the major news coming from the nation’s capital. Who better to give us the real scoop? Ifill will give us her thoughts as this year’s Benjamin C. Bradlee Lecturer in Journalism at St. Mary’s College of Maryland at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 14, in Auerbach Auditorium at St. Mary’s Hall. Her topic: “Politics, Policy, and Reality: What’s Really Going on in Washington?”

Ifill, who has covered six presidential campaigns and moderated the vice presidential debates in 2004 and 2008, will bring her veteran experience and trademark wit to highlight the day's political headlines, including what's going on inside the Obama administration and on Capitol Hill, and how both will affect the 2012 election cycle.

Now in its 42nd year on the air, "Washington Week" is the longest-running prime-time news and public affairs program on television. During the 2008 presidential campaign season, the program launched a 10-city series of road shows across America with live audiences. The series earned a Peabody Award. Ifill also is author of the 2009 best-selling "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama."

The Bradlee Lecture has brought some of the most eminent journalists to the St. Mary’s campus, including Tom Brokaw, Bob Woodward, Tony Kornheiser, and Ben Bradlee himself. The lecture is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, a joint initiative of St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Historic St. Mary’s City, to explore contemporary and historical issues associated with democracy and liberty in national and international contexts.

St. Mary's College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. More than 2,000 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary's River in Southern Maryland.