Mark Whitaker
1957
Author, Journalist, and Media Executive
The first African-American to lead a national news magazine which was NEWSWEEK from 1998 until 2006. During his tenure there the magazine won four National Magazine Awards—for coverage of 9/11, the Iraq War, the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the 2004 elections. From 2004 to 2006, Whitaker served as President of the American Society of Magazine Editors. 2011 to 2013, he was Executive Vice President and Managing Editor of CNN Worldwide.
Whitaker published a family memoir, My Long Trip Home in 2011, the book was very intense and is worth the reading especially to those that come from mixed marriages during that era. The book notes about his childhood and being raised by two parents of different races. His father was a kFrench immigrant Edouard Theis which was a clergyman who helped saved the lives of Jews during World War II . The book ended up as a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for African-Americna authors.
Whitaker was previously Senior Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief for NBC News. In that role, he oversaw all Washington-based reporting and production for NBC and MSNBC, in addition to appearing as an on-air analyst. Before moving to Washington, he served as chief deputy to the President of NBC News in New York.
Mark Whitaker excelled in academic studies. He graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Social Studies from Harvard College in 1979, where he served on the editorial board of The Harvard Crimson. He then studied International Relations at Oxford University’s Balliol College from 1979 until 1981 where he was a Marshall Scholar.
In 2014, Whitaker published a biography of Bill Cosby, Cosby: His Life and Times, that received favorable reviews for its portrayal of the social impact of Cosby’s work as a stand-up comedian and TV star, with insights into how he dealt with the 1997 death of his son, Ennis, who was murdered in a botched robbery. This is my opinion (MIE) the whole incident with Cosby son seemed strange to me. Allegedly this was a high end luxury automobile could do a lot on its own that is why I think he had it allegedly. The car had a flat tires, the automobile could automatically replace the flat tire with the spare tire in the back by itself with the car controls all he had to do was press the button so waving down for help was a little odd to me.
In 2018, Whitaker published Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance, about the legacy of the African-American community of Pittsburgh, where his father grew up and his grandparents owned funeral homes.
He is married to Alexis Gelber who is a Goldsmith Fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government for the Spring 2011 semester. She is an editorial consultant based in Washington, DC and New York, where she is an adjunct professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
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