in 1994. In October 1999, she became the moderator of the PBS program Washington Week in Review, the first black woman to host a national political talk show on television. She was a senior correspondent for PBS NewsHour. Ifill appeared on various news shows, including Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Charlie Rose, Inside Washington, and The Tavis Smiley Show. In November 2006, she co-hosted Jamestown Live!, an educational webcast commemorating the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, Virginia. Ifill served on the boards of the Harvard Institute of Politics, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Museum of Television and Radio, and the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism. In 2017, the Committee to Protect Journalists renamed the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award, which started in 1991, to Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. The award has since been given to Judy Woodruff in 2017, Maria Ressa in 2018, Zaffar Abbas in 2019, Amal Clooney in 2020 and Jimmy Lai in 2021. 2004 and 2008 vice-presidential debates On October 5, 2004, Ifill moderated the vice-presidential debate between the Republican Vice President Dick Cheney and the Democratic candidate and U.S. Senator from North Carolina, John Edwards. Howard Kurtz described the consensus that Ifill "acquitted herself well" as moderator. She was the first African-American woman to moderate a vice-presidential debate. Ifill also moderated the vice-presidential debate on October 2, 2008, between the Democratic U.S. Senator from Delaware Joe Biden and the Republican governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, at Washington University in St. Louis. The debate's format offered Ifill freedom to cover domestic and international issues. Before the 2008 debate, Ifill's objectivity was questioned by conservative talk radio, blogs, cable news programs and some independent media analysts because of her book The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, which was scheduled to be released on Inauguration Day 2009, but whose contents had not been disclosed to the debate commission or the campaigns. The book was mentioned in The Washington Times and appeared in trade catalogues as early as July 2008, well before Ifill was selected by the debate committee. Several analysts viewed Ifill's book as creating a conflict of interest, including Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, who said, "Obviously the book will be much more valuable to her if Obama is elected." John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, said in an interview on Fox News Channel, "I think