Jeffrey Goldberg: Let us bring our viewers to Gwen.

I just want you to watch this watch this brief compilation of Gwen in many different settings.

Gwen Ifill: I've been overwhelmed by the good wishes sent my way as I move to the head of our little table here at Washington Week.

Welcome to the first and the only 2008 vice presidential debate.

Good evening and welcome to Elkhart, Indiana, as we sit down with President Obama.

I'm here in St.

Petersburg, Florida.

We are here in post-debate Milwaukee.

Hello and welcome to Philadelphia.

Join us every Friday night.

We'll always have a lot to say, and we'll always want to hear what you have to say as well.

Jeffrey Goldberg: One thing we didn't have there, Michele, was Gwen with a broken ankle still doing national debates.

Michele Norris, Senior Contributing Editor, MS NOW: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But give us the framing here.

I mean, you were very, very close to Gwen.

What did she bring to national journalism that we didn't really have before her rise?

Michele Norris: Well, it's easy to say that, you know, she was an African American woman, so she brought a level of diversity into every room that she entered, but she was our standard-bearer, and she had this... She was a compass.

She was a walking exclamation point and a walking compass.

She was the, the person who would call you, and I think all of us have received those calls, Step away from the keyboard.

She was the person who pushed you to find your best self as journalists.

And she cared about journalism.

She cared about the craft of journalism.

She called it a craft, and she was a defender of journalism, and she was also a cultivator.

One of the things that I always appreciated is that she was always working with young people.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Michele Norris: She made time.

There are a number of people who see themselves as mentees and acolytes.

And if you traveled with her, as I often did, people would not approach her as a celebrity.

They would approach her as a friend.

And so for people who watched the show every night, for people who saw her on PBS, or people who saw her on campaigns and in debates, she had something magical about her that she connected with people.

She was tough, but she was not a scold.

She was a standard-bearer, but she was not like Tracy Flick.

She wasn't like wagging a finger at anyone.

She was beckoning you to find your best self.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I want you to watch with me a moment from Gwen's funeral.

This is John Dickerson giving a eulogy at the funeral.

John Dickerson, Contributing Writer, The Atlantic: I'm not going to say it in church, but there's a very specific word for what Gwen could detect.

It is our greatest local crop in Washington.

Jeffrey Goldberg: John, talk about that quality of Gwen just not brooking any nonsense.

John Dickerson: Including from those of us at the table.

I mean, when you have those -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, or especially.

John Dickerson: Or especially, yes.

Well, I mean, what I remember, it happened many different times on the campaign trail or at some administration gaggle with some official.

You know, there's a little bit of footsie that happens at the beginning of that, some joking around or whatever, and Gwen had very little patience for that.

You were there to do business, and often she would ask a question that not only punctured that little moment and got to the business of why we were there, but sort of reframed and made more serious that exchange with the administration official.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

I want you guys to watch one other moment, a very famous moment from Gwen's life.

This is in 2004 when she's doing the vice presidential debate, and it's Dick Cheney and John Edwards.

And she asks what has become a very, very famous question, the sort of question that had not been asked in previous debates.

Watch this with me, because I want to talk about this.

Gwen Ifill: But I want to talk to you about AIDS, and not about AIDS in China or Africa, but AIDS right here in this country, where Black women between the ages of 25 and 44 are 13 times more likely to die of the disease than their counterparts.

What should the government's role be in helping to end the growth of this epidemic?

Let me turn this on its head, because when we talk about race in this country, we always talk about African Americans, people of color.

I want to talk to you about white people, okay?

I know.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That was a moment in 2016 when Gwen I think was winking at all of us and saying, you know what?

I'm going to make Bernie Sanders a little bit uncomfortable for a minute.

Michele Norris: Yes.

And you tried to diffuse it with humor, and she like plowed right ahead with that question.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

No.

Talk about that, that moment.

That was an interesting example -- this is a question for both of you -- interesting example of diversity in the truest sub- most substantive sense.

It's like bringing people with different backgrounds, different experiences, they're going to have different kinds of questions.

Michele Norris: I love that you included both of them, because in the first -- you know that Dick Cheney and John Edwards were briefed to the high heavens, and they were not ready for that question.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Michele Norris: There was no way that they were ready for that question.

And so she was bringing people along with her.

She was bringing Black women into that debate along with her and saying, you deserve to be a part of this conversation.

On the other hand, she was also saying, you know, when we talk about race, white Americans too often get to be spectators.

And so if we're actually going to talk about race, let's have a full conversation.

Let's make sure, and I, neither Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders were probably prepared for that question either.

John Dickerson: Gwen had a worldview, and that worldview was not swayed or affected by the shiny thing of the moment or the hot take of the moment, and that is what we all admired, is that set of standards.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

And talk about standards, Jon.

Jonathan Karl, Chief Washington Correspondent, ABC News: I mean, look she would ask the relevant question, the pointed question, and persistently insist on getting an answer, but she did it in a way that wasn't like unnecessarily adversarial.

I mean, you still really liked Gwen Ifill, I think, even when she was asking you, you know -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, the smile was incredibly famous and incandescent.

But there was no nonsense involved.

Jonathan Karl: No nonsense at all.

Jeffrey Goldberg: What lesson do you -- when you look at her career and the way she -- the way she led herself in public, what lesson do you as someone in the business take from the way she did things?

Jonathan Karl: You know, first of all, I first got to know her in 1999, 1998, 1999, when I was covering the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and so was she for the Today Show.

And I had to be the -- I was there.

It's my life up on Capitol Hill during those months, and so did Gwen.

I never saw anybody more hardworking.

I often had the second car in the little parking area on East Capitol Street where journalists could park back then.

The first car was Gwen's.

Or I would have the first, she would have the second.

We were always the first to arrive.

And I got to -- and we were covering this historic event.

And I just -- those moments in the morning getting her kind of like cutting through the B.S., yes, this is a big historic moment, and it's also like what are we really doing here?

Michele Norris: You know, the thing I think about is the word anchor.

We use that word all the time, but we forget what it really means.

It keeps you on track.

It's that thing that actually keeps you on track.

And, you know, a lot of anchors don't necessarily do that.

We're glad that you do but lots of them don't.

And she did that.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, I think Gwen would think I tell too many jokes on this show.

John Dickerson: Well, she would have.

Jeffrey Goldberg: She would.

No, I hear her.

Believe me, I hear her.

John Dickerson: As quick a laugh as Gwen had and that gorgeous smile, when you -- if one cracked a joke at the table, she would not smile.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Oh, I remember.

John Dickerson: Because she didn't believe that that was the role or that her viewers -- you know, that was not -- that she -- it was very hard.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Oh, no.

I would make twice the number of jokes if I didn't have Gwen in my head right now.

John Dickerson: The first person in my life, it's a grace to work with somebody who makes you want to be so much better than you can be, who lifts your game, and she was the first I experienced that with.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Speaking of jokes, Gwen was also an international icon.

She was a celebrity.

She managed it well.

But I want you to watch these couple of moments.

The first is from Queen Latifah.

And the second is from Will Ferrell when he's getting the Mark Twain Prize a number of years ago.

Queen Latifah: Good evening, I'm Gwen Ifill.

Welcome to Washington University in St.

Louis, Missouri, to the first and only 2008 vice presidential debate.

Will Ferrell: I mean, tonight, if I -- after the show, if I want to go on a bender with Gwen Ifill, and buy a couple spear guns and try to scale the Washington Monument, I'm going to do it, okay?

Michele Norris: I don't know that she would do all of it, but she might have a sip of brown liquor with him at the end of the night.

She loved the Queen Latifah bit, and it actually came at a moment that really, she had broken her ankle.

And so when she did that debate, she was hobbling on one foot, and she was really -- she did it without any painkillers because she wanted to be totally present.

So, when that happened, it was really something that was very special to her.

And the thing that, that you didn't show, though, the thing that really got to her, is when little girls would come to the door on Halloween, because she was big on Halloween, she loved kids, and they would come to the door dressed as Gwen Ifill.

And so as much as she loved Queen Latifah, she loved that she was having this effect on the next generation.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That's an amazing story.

Well, she was she was singular.

We all know that.

And I think I speak for this panel when I say that we all miss her very much.

I'm sure you at home also miss her very much.

We are going to have to leave it there.

I'm glad that we had the time to talk about Gwen Ifill and her legacy.

She won't be forgotten.

We loved her here, we loved her everywhere, and we all miss her very, very much.

I want to thank our guests for joining me for this very, very moving conversation.

I want to thank you at home for watching us.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg borrowing Gwen Ifill's seat, good night from Washington.