Last year's municipal elections led to a changing of the guard not just at City Hall, but at
The Baltimore Afro-American: Editor in chief Anthony McCarthy left the paper to became City Council President Sheila Dixon's chief of staff, and Tony White gave up his position as senior reporter to become press secretary for Mayor Martin O'Malley.On Feb. 12, the
Afro officially presented its new editor to readers with a front-page announcement. Steve Cupid Theodore joined the paper Jan. 24; his first byline ran on the Jan. 29 front page.
The 34-year-old Theodore emigrated to the United States from the Caribbean in 1984. He comes to Baltimore by way of New York, where he spent six months as an assistant editor and deputy copy chief for the über-alternaweekly, The Village Voice.
Theodore is reluctant to speak just yet about his plans for the Afro—"I'd rather be able to talk about what I've done than what I'll be doing," he said in an interview—but says he hopes to "lend a certain stability to the place" by staying at the helm for two or three years. The top editorial spot at the 108-year-old weekly has seen a lot of turnover of late, with the last three editors each holding the post for about a year.
"The important issue is to have an impact on the quality of the paper and its relationship to the community," Theodore says. "To really affect the quality of the paper and its effect on African-American lives here, it's going to take time and committment." 
