Newsweek Makes News With Black Editor

Newsweek magazine on Tuesday appointed Mark Whitaker editor, making the 41-year-old journalist the first African American to head a major U.S. news weekly and one of the few to run a large news organization of any kind.

Whitaker, who has worked with Newsweek for 21 years, succeeds Maynard Parker, who ran the magazine for 16 years and died last month of leukemia at age 58. “Mark clearly has the experience, drive, character and good judgment to lead Newsweek into a very successful future,” said Richard Smith, the magazine’s chairman and editor-in-chief.

Whitaker, who started at the magazine as a San Francisco intern, said he expects to keep the publication focused on its main task: “We’ll stay out in front of the big news stories, ahead of the pack. . . . That will always be our responsibility.”

He also pledged to bring new priorities to the magazine, which has 3.2 million readers, compared to Time’s 4.1 million. “I have interests in technology, in science and the way it’s changing all of our lives; I am also concerned about family issues, how people juggle lives and careers every day,” said Whitaker, who has two children and whose wife, Alexis Gelber, is managing editor of Newsweek International.

“We do a good job of covering the baby boomers, the generation I’m a part of,” he said. “But I want us to be a must-read for millions of younger readers as well.”

Whitaker credited his promotion to his many years at the magazine, which have included stints as assistant managing editor and business editor and work as a reporter in the international section. However, he added that the advancement and expanded hiring of minorities in American newsrooms “is a very important issue for our profession, one that I certainly care about. And I hope that my appointment shows that we’re making progress.”

Yet there’s still a big gulf to overcome, said Robin Stone, vice president of the National Assn. of Black Journalists. The situation “is not a happy one with newspapers or magazines, as far as the minority hiring practices of news organizations.”

Recently, the organization protested a decision by the American Society of Newspaper Editors to delay from the year 2000 to 2025 its goal of reaching “parity” in newsrooms--a point at which the number of black journalists in newsrooms would mirror blacks’ 12% share of the overall population.

Currently, blacks constitute 5.38% of the newspaper work force, according to NABJ reports. “To reach the new ASNE goal, newspapers would need to increase minority representation by 1% a year [or roughly] 1,180 new minority hires in 1999 alone,” said an NABJ statement. “According to ASNE’s own census, only 586 new journalists of color were hired last year.”

As for magazines, the number of minority employees has not been measured precisely, but one survey published in Folio magazine last summer suggested that less than 9% of editors and art directors were minorities; 3.3% were black, Stone said.

“Mark Whitaker’s appointment is a milestone indeed,” she added. “But it only underscores how far we have to go.”