Contributor

Terence Smith

Journalist

Terence Smith is an award-winning journalist who has been a political reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and television analyst over the course of a four-decade career. He has written on everything from a Bedouin wedding in the Sinai to firefights in the jungles of Vietnam to presidential news conferences in the White House.

Born into a newspapering family – his father was Red Smith, the sports columnist – Smith began his career covering local politics at the Stamford (CT) Advocate. Moving on to The New York Herald Tribune, his coverage of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign for the United States Senate in New York attracted attention and propelled him to a job at The New York Times. He spent 20 years with The Times, including eight years abroad in the Middle East and Far East, covering four wars, peace negotiations and the day-to-day lives of people in more than 40 countries. Smith’s coverage earned two Pulitzer Prize nominations and numerous other awards. He won the Times’ Publisher’s Prize for outstanding writing 22 times. Smith also served as Assistant Foreign Editor and Deputy Metropolitan Editor in New York. In the paper’s Washington bureau, he served as diplomatic correspondent and chief White House correspondent before founding and editing the popular Washington Talk page.

In 1985, Smith joined CBS News in Washington, covering the Reagan White House and for nine years, reporting the cover stories for CBS Sunday Morning. He earned two Emmys for his work on the broadcast “48 Hours,” and shared in the George Foster Peabody Award for general excellence given to the staff of CBS Sunday Morning.

In 1998, Smith turned to public television, founding and leading the media unit at The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. As senior producer and media correspondent, Smith broadcast 110 in-depth tape reports and anchored some 250 studio discussions on media issues. In the course of seven years, Smith and his unit won 18 national awards and honors for media criticism and analysis. He is now a special correspondent for The NewsHour.

Smith is a frequent guest host for The Diane Rehm Show on National Public Radio. He speaks, writes and broadcasts on national politics, international affairs and environmental issues involving the Chesapeake Bay and ocean policies. Married with two grown children, he lives on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay, where he squeezes in as much sailing and tennis as possible.

September 22, 2017
April 18, 2017
September 14, 2016

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