Who Is The Black Snob?
Visionary? Creative? Editor? Digital Media Strategist? Blogger? An all-around word hustlin', perambulating pontificator? Danielle C. Belton has been all those things and more.
But she was originally "The Snob."
From 2007 until 2012, Belton was the creator, editor, and writer of the popular pop culture and politics blog, The Black Snob. An award-winning site, Belton racked up views right alongside her accolades, but then left the blogging world behind in 2012 to become head writer for a late-night talk show on BET Networks.
She would go on to lead various newsrooms — from HuffPost to The Root — and today is a consultant helping individuals, nonprofits, and brands realize their full potential.
But The Black Snob is back... and so is Danielle C. Belton: the writer, the blogger, the creative, the bomb-thrower, and newsmaker. AKA, the woman formerly known as "your blogger's favorite blogger."
She's back!
But where did she go in the first place?
When Belton became Editor-in-Chief of HuffPost in 2021, her hiring was called a "landmark event" in Digiday, with past staffers praising her empathy and voice. And in her first year, Axios reported that HuffPost was profitable. During her four-year tenure, HuffPost broke numerous traffic records, reaching 560 million cross-platform page views in September 2024.
At HuffPost, Belton improved overall newsroom diversity and relaunched HuffPost Voices as a multiethnic, intersectional vertical celebrating the lives and cultures of people of color, women, and queer folk. And in 2022, HuffPost created Indigenous Voices, one of the first verticals by a mainstream publication for Indigenous peoples in the United States.
Before HuffPost, Belton was the "beloved" and award-winning Editor-in-Chief of The Root, where she grew the Black interest news site traffic by 300% her first year as lead editor, as the site moved from 3 million unique visitors per month to more than 12 million. In her six-year tenure, The Root broke many personal records, including reaching an all-time-high 20.9 million unique monthly visitors in January 2019. Before The Root, Belton wrote for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Essence Magazine, The Guardian, The American Prospect, TheGrio, BP Magazine, and many others.
Passionate about both journalism and her community, Belton has and continues to give back by mentoring young women of color, including several young Black female journalists and writers, and was formerly part of the "Brain Trust" of the mentorship not-for-profit Unlock Her Potential. She currently mentors aspiring media leaders through the National Association of Black Journalists' Leadership Academy. She also advocates for the destigmatization of mental illness and is on the Leadership Circle for the National Alliance on Mental Illness in New York City.
A sought-after public speaker, Belton addresses many topics, from race and journalism to gender, politics, culture, entertainment, history, mental health and wellness, and much, much more. She gave the commencement speech for the Craig Newmark School of Journalism in 2021. She has also spoken at numerous conferences and for many organizations, including Leading Women Defined, Chief Network, Davidson College, the Women’s March in Roanoke, Va., the National Coalition of 100 Black Women Baltimore Chapter’s Torchbearers' Breakfast, the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Havard's Black Policy Conference, Yale University’s Black Solidarity Conference, and Duke University’s “Race in Space” Conference. Belton has also appeared as a commentator on CNN, MSNBC, ABC's Nightline, TV One, Good Morning America, NPR, PBS, and many more.
Winner of several accolades, Belton was honored by the International Women's Media Foundation in 2024 as one of their “35 for 35 News Industry Leaders,” and she was among the "10 Women to Watch" named by Editor & Publisher in 2021. Women's eNews awarded her the Rita Henley Jensen Award for her work as a newsroom leader in 2019.
Originally from Florissant, Mo, a municipality in the greater St. Louis area, Belton currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently writing a humorous memoir about living with Bipolar disorder.