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Washington Week welcomes Yamiche Alcindor

Alcindor will be the ninth moderator in Washington Week’s 54-year history

  • Fred Vigeant
Yamiche Alcindor as the new moderator of Washington Week

Yamiche Alcindor as the new moderator of Washington Week

This month Yamiche Alcindor begins her tenure as the new moderator of Washington Week, the Peabody Award-winning weekly PBS news analysis series produced by WETA. Alcindor will continue as White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour. She is also a political contributor for NBC News and MSNBC and has worked as a reporter for USA Today and The New York Times.

Alcindor will be the ninth moderator in Washington Week’s 54-year history, following Washington Post political reporter Robert Costa, who held the position from 2017 to 2021, and Gwen Ifill, who moderated the program from 1999 until her death in 2016. Alcindor has served periodically as a guest moderator since Costa’s departure in January 2021.

Alcindor has covered the White House for PBS NewsHour since 2018. Prior to that, she covered the campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders for The New York Times. During the 2020 presidential election season, Alcindor was a moderator for the sixth Democratic primary debate. She is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions for her work, including the 2020 Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage from the White House Correspondents’ Association and the 2020 Gwen Ifill Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF).

Alcindor was born in Miami, Florida, to Haitian parents. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English, government and African American studies from Georgetown University. In 2015, she received a master’s degree in broadcast news and documentary filmmaking from New York University.

Washington Week moderators prior to Costa and Ifill included John Davenport, public affairs director for WETA and the show’s inaugural moderator; Lincoln Furber, former CBS newscaster; Max Kampelman, prominent Washington, D.C. attorney; Robert MacNeil, future co-anchor of The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour; Paul Duke, veteran NBC journalist; and Ken Bode, former NBC and CNN correspondent.

Washington Week is known for its depth, balance and civil discourse. The program features a roundtable of journalists from print, broadcast and online news organizations who provide analysis of the week’s major national news stories and their impact on the lives of Americans. For over 50 years, dating back to the premiere broadcast on February 23, 1967, Washington Week has delivered the most interesting, informative and reporter-driven conversation of the week. It is the longest-running primetime news and analysis program on television and was recognized for its journalism excellence with a 2008 Peabody Award, among other honors.

Watch Washington Week every week Fridays at 8pm on WITF.

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