Mark Whitaker is an American author, journalist and media executive.
He was the Editor of Newsweek from 1998 until 2006, the first African American to lead a national news magazine. From 2004 to 2006, Whitaker served as president of the American Society of Magazine Editors. He was senior vice president and Washington bureau chief for NBC News. From 2011 to 2013, he was executive vice president and managing editor of CNN Worldwide.
Whitaker has written the books My Long Trip Home (2011), a family memoir; Cosby: His Life and Times (2014), a biography of Bill Cosby; Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance (2018), about the legacy of the African-American community of Pittsburgh; and Saying It Loud: 1966-The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement (2023).
He was named one of Essence magazine's 25 most influential African Americans for 2008.
