Distinguished journalist joins English department

Veteran New York Times journalist Ronald Smothers has joined the faculty as Distinguished Journalist in Residence, at the same time the University launches a new minor in journalism.

After a 35-year career with the Times, Smothers “brings great experience to our program at a critical time,” says Tom Apple, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Smothers says his career began when he was in search of a summer job in his hometown of Washington, D.C., after graduating from Hobart College. He was applying for a job as a copy boy at The Washington Post, but the person interviewing him suggested that he apply for an internship instead.

When he discovered the internship paid $15 more a week, that clinched it, Smothers recalls. The year was 1967, when there were riots in Newark, N.J., and Smothers soon found himself in the thick of it.

“There were not many black reporters in those days, and the Post felt I could go places and talk to people that other reporters could not,” he says. “So the Post bought me a plane ticket, and I became part of the team covering the event, which was big news.”

After stints with Newsday and the Community News Service, Smothers was invited to become a reporter on the metropolitan beat of The New York Times, where he began his long, varied career with the paper. He covered such events as the Attica prison riots and Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential run and had beats including city hall, the New York suburbs, the Albany state house and New Jersey politics. In 1988, he began work in the Atlanta bureau of the Times and served as bureau chief from
1994-1997.

Smothers has lectured at Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center and taught a seminar course, “Race and the Media,” at Rutgers University. He also has taught news writing as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College.