Lecture: Elinor Tatum

By Annie H. Myers

Elinor Tatum
Elinor Tatum speaking at NYU Journalism. Photo: Annie H. Myers.

From the start, Elinor Tatum tested her audience of students and faculty in NYU's Department of Journalism: "How many black-owned newspapers are there in the country?" (She defined a "black newspaper" as one whose ownership and operation is at least 51% African American.) A few audience members hazarded guesses. She set them straight: "About 200, across the country, in 48 states." The first black newspaper was founded 150 years ago, she explained, to give a voice to the African-American community. Today, there are 10 black papers in New York City alone, she noted ("a lot of newspapers for one community"), and the Amsterdam News is one of them.

Tatum, 34, is that paper's publisher and editor-in-chief. She's also a graduate of the NYU journalism program. "We cover everything that has to do with NYC," she said, "just with an African American slant."

Tatum's involvement with newspaper journalism began at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. As an undergrad, she did paste-up and layout ("with an X-acto knife and wax") on The Hill News, St. Lawrence's student newspaper. In 1996, she enrolled in NYU's graduate program in journalism, working full-time at the Amsterdam News through her graduation in 1998. The paper announced that she was the new publisher and editor-in-chief in 1997, before she knew she'd gotten the job.

Tatum's success crosses the difficult boundaries of gender and race. How did she do it? "Nepotism," she quipped, then laughed. "It's a family newspaper, and that made it much easier for me." When Tatum started at the Amsterdam News in 1994, there wasn't a single computer on the editorial floor; she brought in the first PC, and quickly made herself indispensable. "I had a leg up because my family owned the newspaper," she said, "but it was a challenge. I worked my butt off. I wanted other people to know I was not just the daughter of the publisher."

Speaking to a department she was once a part of, Tatum addressed the grad students in the crowd directly. "So the things that you guys need most is a way to get in the door," she said. "You guys all want jobs when you get out of here, right?" New York, in Tatum's opinion, is a great place to start a career in journalism. She chided the students for not sticking their necks out: "When you guys are writing and reporting, do you pitch the story? Why not? The worst thing we can say is no. It's the way to get your foot in the door." She added a reality check: "That's assuming you're any good as a writer."

Urging students to begin their careers by writing for community newspapers, Tatum recommended the Amsterdam News as a steppingstone. "When I can say that one of my reporters left because he or she became a reporter somewhere else, it's the proudest feeling I can possibly have," she said. Real-world experience and the clips to prove it is essential to getting that foot in the door, she noted. "You can't hand your prospective employer your papers with an A or a B on them," she said. "Kinda tacky."

"Anyone that you meet has a story. They're a human being—they're not someone to feel sorry for, they're an equal, no matter if society tells you that they're different."

Tatum assured her listeners that every prospective freelancer has a chance at her paper, regardless of race. "There's no color code on the editorial staff," Tatum said. That policy applies not only to the writers the paper uses, but to the community it serves. "We try to teach our reporters, no matter what color they are, to have respect for the people that they're covering." She spoke of a young Arthur Sulzberger, sent to cover a church opening on 124th street. "It was a huge event," she said, "and he was the little white guy walking around with a pad and paper." Three elderly black women questioned his presence, only to learn he was a reporter for the Amsterdam News. Their response? "Well, God bless you, son." "Regardless of race," Tatum said, "Arthur had a connection to the people he was reporting on."

An experience outside of the newspaper helped Tatum understand that connection, which she believes is essential to good reporting. Back in 1990, she joined a group of 13 other students, self-dubbed "Student Transport Aid" by their leader Dan Eldon, who at 20 was already a working photojournalist. Traveling to Africa to aid victims of the civil war in Mozambique, the group spent a week interviewing inhabitants of a refugee camp in Malawi and donated the money it raised to two much-needed drinking wells in the town. For Tatum, the trip was a life-changing experience. "Dan Eldon was white!," she said. Nonetheless, "he could be sitting with warlords in Somalia as well as with marines from the United States and feel completely comfortable in either situation because he connected with the people he was talking to. That can transcend color lines." She added, "You have to believe that you're just like those you're talking to. Anyone that you meet has a story: they're a human being; they're not someone to feel sorry for, they're an equal, no matter if society tells you that they're different."

It was partly her sense of history—what she calls the "sense of shared struggles within the black diaspora"—that inspired Tatum to go to Africa. It's an interest that serves her well at the Amsterdam News, which some readers are drawn to through "a sense of history, a sense of tradition, because their parents and grandparents shared the black press," noted Tatum. "There's still those people that don't believe it happened until they read it in the Amsterdam News. There's a sense of trust."

That community of readers is the driving force behind the Amsterdam News, a thriving paper since James Henry Anderson founded it in 1909. Tatum's current project, the paper's website, is crucial in maintaining her audience. She is pushing to attract younger readers. "The young generation is just not reading!" she said. "But newspapers do a much better job of reporting the news [than Web publications do]. It's the kids that are interested in what's going on around them that are still reading newspapers."

In the future, Tatum would love to see the mainstream media covering black issues the way she believes it should. "If you look at the mainstream press, when it comes to covering the black community," she said, making a dismissive gesture, "it's over there; they don't try to get inside of it." For things to change, she said, African-Americans would have to gain editorial control, joining the ranks of those who decide what's on the front page. "The New York Sun, even though right-wing, does a really good job of covering our community," she said, as opposed to The Daily News, where "the only time you really see things about blacks is when they've done something wrong."

Racism is a fact of American life, Tatum argued, from everyday encounters such as the white woman who yelled obscenities at her, presumably because she was black, to the upper echelons of the media industry. "I did The O'Reilly Factor after Katrina," she said, "and I had over 350 of the most vile e-mails that I have ever seen in my life. There are people out there who just don't like people of color, no matter what they say and no matter what they're doing. There are black reporters who will not get through doors because they're black."

Tatum has her work cut out for her. "Racism isn't going anywhere," she said, "and as long as there's racism and as long as there's inequality, there's gonna be a need for the black press."

Annie Myers is a freshman at NYU, where she is majoring in journalism. She is interested in reporting on the third world.

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