Danielle Belton

Born and raised St. Louis, Mo. on a healthy diet of news programming, pop culture, black history and “snark,” Danielle Belton—daughter of loving “regular folk” and wife of no one—examines the irreverent side of American life.

Formerly the editor and creator of the award-winning blog, The Black Snob, Belton is best known as the current Editor-in-Chief of the leading African American news site, The Root. She became the youngest person to lead the 11-year-old website in 2016, and in her tenure, Belton has grown the site’s traffic by more than 300 percent, taking The Root from 3.5 million unique visitors per month to more than 10 million in 2017.

Before The Root, in 2012, Belton was the first African American woman to lead a writer’s room in late-night television when she was Head Writer for BET’s "Don’t Sleep," hosted by T. J. Holmes.

In 2019, Belton received the Rita Henley Jensen Excellence in Journalism Award from Women’s eNews. Also as a sought after public speaker, Belton was the keynote at the Roanoke, Va. Women’s March in 2018, and has spoken at numerous universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Howard University, Duke University, and many, many others.

As a journalist, Belton has written for: The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Essence Magazine, The Guardian, The American Prospect, Jezebel, NPR and many others. Earlier in her career, Belton was a former blogger and online campaign manager for nonprofits New Security Action/Win Without War, a senior digital media strategist for the racial justice nonprofit Advancement Project, and was an entertainment reporter and columnist for The Bakersfield Californian.

She has also appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, Good Morning America, ABC’s Nightline and many others. As a commentator, Belton was a regular contributor to NPR’s Tell Me More with Michel Martin, PBS’ To The Contrary with Bonnie Erbe and CNN Sundays with Fredericka Whitfield. Before that, she was a regular roundtable contributor on NPR’s News and Notes with Farai Chideya.

As an advocate for mental illness, Belton wrote about Bipolar Disorder for BP Magazine’s online site. She also penned her own profile on her struggle with the disorder in BP Magazine’s summer 2011 book and for the January 2012 edition of Essence Magazine. She is currently writing a humorous, instructive memoir about the disease.

Belton currently resides in New York City.