Michael P. Smith (Inducted 2000)

Michael P. Smith is recognized for being a visionary, for taking risks, pushing the envelope, providing leadership, becoming a mentor and encouraging others to think originally.

Mike Smith is now managing director of the Media Management Center at Northwestern University, is the newest member of AASFE's Features Hall of Fame.

Mike has been pushing the edge in journalism for most of his career. His first adventure in features was as editor of The Way We Live at the Detroit Free Press, in 1985.

"It was different from other editing jobs I'd had," he says. "I had to think beyond what the news budget was feeding me. I had to develop talent in my staff and constantly think about new ways to connect with readers. And I got to learn about amazing stuff. I'd jump from editing a science story about hybrid seed corn to an article on how long a man's shirt collar should be. I remember back in the mid-'80s when the WWF was just starting its comeback. They'd sold 90,000 tickets at the Silverdome and the sports department wouldn't cover it. So we covered it as a fashion event. It was great."

He took that enthusiasm with him when he became deputy director of the 25/43 Project in Boca Raton in 1989 and was asked to create a newspaper that grabbed the attention of younger readers. And he used it in 1991, when he became an internal consultant for Knight Ridder, working with newspapers to develop new features and new sections with strong reader appeal.

It's still evident today in his teaching and research at Northwestern, where he remains very much in touch with working journalists. He is faculty director for the Advanced Executive Program, a four-week program for senior newspaper executives, and much of his research focuses on changing news needs and emerging media trends. During his 10 years at Northwestern, he has also used his wide contacts on behalf of AASFE. He served as president in 1996 and has been an active director since then. He's organized seminars and speeches for AASFE programs and has readily jumped in when the organization needed counsel or direction - most recently in its search for a permanent home at a university.

Although he's worked in many sectors of journalism, he remembers his features position in Detroit as "the best job I ever had."

"It's in features," he says, "where you can really see a newspaper's strategy and mission and values - from the stories it selects, the people it covers; from what it gets excited about; and what it truly cares about."