Elinor Tatum
Publisher and editor-in-chief of the New York Amsterdam News since 1997, the first Black woman named Editor & Publisher magazine's Publisher of the Year in its 140-year history.
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- Location
- New York City
- Country
- United States
- Role
- Publisher and editor-in-chief, New York Amsterdam News
- Tenure
- Publisher/editor-in-chief since 1997; at the paper since the late 1980s
- Education
- B.S., government studies, St. Lawrence University; M.A., journalism and mass communications, NYU
- Award
- Editor & Publisher magazine's 2024 Publisher of the Year — first Black woman to receive it in the award's 140-year history
Overview
Elinor Tatum is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the New York Amsterdam News, a historic Black weekly newspaper her father, Wilbert Tatum, acquired in 1971. She joined the paper’s staff in the late 1980s, working her way up through production and editorial roles before becoming chief operating officer and associate publisher in 1996 and being named publisher and editor-in-chief in 1997 (Editor & Publisher). By 2005, independent of the Amsterdam News itself, NPR identified her as the paper’s editor-in-chief and interviewed her as an expert commentator on how Black Americans get their news (NPR).
Leadership and recent growth
In 2021, Tatum appointed Siobhan Bennett as the paper’s president and chief revenue officer, and together they carried out a five-year strategic plan that grew the paper’s newsletter subscriber base from about 900 to 27,000, tripled print subscriptions, and doubled the size of its newsroom through grants and partnerships including Report for America; the paper won more than 30 awards over the following two years (Editor & Publisher).
2024 Publisher of the Year
In 2024, Editor & Publisher magazine named Tatum its Publisher of the Year — the first Black woman to receive the award in its 140-year history (Editor & Publisher).
What this profile does not claim
This profile relies on Editor & Publisher’s own account of the paper’s subscriber and award figures, which no independently-audited source read here corroborates in detail; those figures are reported as the publication’s own reporting, not independently re-verified statistics.
Timeline
- 1971
- Elinor Tatum's father, Wilbert Tatum, acquires the New York Amsterdam News, a historic Black weekly newspaper.
- 1996
- Becomes chief operating officer and associate publisher of the paper.
- 1997
- Named publisher and editor-in-chief of the New York Amsterdam News.
- 2005
- Identified and interviewed by NPR as editor-in-chief of the Amsterdam News for a segment on how Black Americans get their news.
- 2021
- Appoints Siobhan Bennett as the paper's president and chief revenue officer; the two implement a five-year strategic plan.
- 2024
- Named Editor & Publisher magazine's Publisher of the Year, the first Black woman to receive the award in its 140-year history.
Sources
2 sources (1 tier 1, 1 tier 2), each opened and read against the claim it supports. Every source is independent of the subject; no first-party material is cited. See the source policy.
Both sources were fetched and read in full. Editor & Publisher is the newspaper industry's own trade magazine, independent of the Amsterdam News; the NPR piece is a 2005 broadcast segment that independently identified and interviewed her nearly two decades before the E&P profile, corroborating her long-standing role rather than repeating the same story.
- How Will African Americans Get the News? Supports: Independent 2005 confirmation that she was already editor-in-chief of the New York Amsterdam News and was sought out as an expert commentator on Black press and news consumption.
- Leading with grace and power: Meet Elinor R. Tatum, E&P's 2024 Publisher of the Year Supports: Her education, career progression at the Amsterdam News from intern to publisher, the paper's 2021-on strategic plan and growth figures under her and Siobhan Bennett's leadership, and the 2024 Publisher of the Year award.
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