Elizabeth McLeod

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Elizabeth McLeod (b. 1963) is a journalist and broadcast historian who lives and works on the coast of Maine. During her career in broadcast journalism between 1983 and 1997, she received multiple awards for news writing and production from the Maine Association of Broadcasters. Between 1997 and 2006, she contributed over 800 scripts to the daily CBS Radio Network program Sound*Bytes.

As the leading authority on Amos 'n' Andy, McLeod read thousands of script pages to write The Original Amos ’n’ Andy: Freeman Gosden, Charles Correll and the 1928–1943 Radio Serial. She made much of this book available on the Internet prior to its publication in 2005 by McFarland & Company. The book refutes the usual blanket condemnations of the radio/TV series. Michael J. Hayde reviewed:

Most of you only know what you've been told about Amos 'n' Andy. Most of you have been misled by so-called "enlightened scholarship" that has reduced this once-beloved show to what one revisionist termed "a nightly racial slur." Behold instead the work of a genuine scholar, Elizabeth McLeod, who has evaluated all the latter-day critiques and not-so-benign neglect surrounding Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll's place in broadcast history and then sets the record straight with facts. This is a thoroughly enjoyable, enlightening, fascinating account of a program that captivated millions of listeners of all races... And it's a meticulous, exhaustively researched documentation of data that proves without doubt that Amos Jones and Andy Brown were beloved because they represented that which is good and decent in humankind, foibles and all.

McLeod has written numerous articles on radio pioneers and the history of early radio and is highly respected within the vintage radio community for her scholarly approach and flawless research. Her articles have appeared in such publications as Nostalgia Digest, Journal of the Radio Historical Association of Colorado and Radio Recall. Her contributions to books include Exploring Cultural History: Living Through the Great Depression, edited by Tracy Brown Collins (Greenhaven Press, 2004) and Encyclopedia of Radio, edited by C.H. Sterling (Routledge, 2003).

In recognition of her work, she received the 2005 Ray Stanich Award presented by the Friends of Old Time Radio, and she is a three-time winner of awards from the Maine Association of Broadcasters: Best Continuing Coverage, Radio (1990), Best Radio Commercial (1993) and Best Radio Writing (1996).