In his 40 years producing and reporting, Martin Smith has covered the world: from revolution in Central America and the fall of communism in Russia, to the rise of Al Qaeda and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the inside story of the global financial meltdown. Smith has often been ahead of the news curve. He was among the first journalists to investigate Col. Oliver North's clandestine Contra arms network and one of the first western reporters to investigate the emergence of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network.
Smith began his career in 1976 as a film editor at CBS News and worked his way up through the ranks. His first documentary, Guatemala, (1982) won both a George Polk Award for Investigative Journalism and an Emmy from the Academy of Television Art & Sciences. In 1983, Smith moved to PBS where he produced for the PBS science series NOVA and for FRONTLINE. In 1986, he produced Who's Running This War? for FRONTLINE and won his second George Polk award. In 1989, he served as executive producer of Inside Gorbachev's USSR with Hedrick Smith, winning a third Polk award and DuPont Columbia Gold Baton. In 1990, he joined FRONTLINE as a senior producer at FRONTLINE responsible for editorial supervision of scores of documentaries.
Between 1994 and 1998, Smith worked with ABC News anchor Peter Jennings as a senior producer and oversaw a series of documentary specials for ABC's Peter Jennings Reporting unit, including Hiroshima: Why the Bomb was Dropped, recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award in 1995 and the George Foster Peabody award.
In 1998, Smith left ABC News and founded RAIN Media, an independent production company, which has produced over 50 hours of award winning programming for ABC News and for FRONTLINE, including The Terrorist and the Superpower (aka Hunting bin Laden), which was produced three years before 9/11. A copy of the film was requested by Vice President Dick Cheney's office immediately after the attacks.
In the three months following 9/11, Smith produced two seminal films on the genesis of the attacks—Looking for Answers (2001) and Saudi Time Bomb? (2001). Along with other FRONTLINE films produced in the wake of 9/11, the Alfred I. DuPont jurors awarded Smith and his colleagues another Gold Baton and said of the work: "The series never flinches from showing why terrorist groups harbor such hate for America and includes people whose attitudes toward the Untied States are undoubtedly offensive to many viewers. Yet all of the programs are balanced and never sensationalized."
Smith continued reporting on Al Qaeda in subsequent years. In the trilogy, In Search of Al Qaeda (2002), Return of the Taliban (2006) and Obama's War (2008), Smith investigated Pakistan's duplicitous policy toward Afghanistan and confronted top Pakistani officials—including, on two occasions, President Pervez Musharraf. This work had a major impact on the direction of U.S. policy towards Pakistan. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry showed excerpts from Return of the Taliban in high-level briefings with Bush administration officials.
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Smith has covered the conflict for FRONTLINE with a series of films, including Truth, War and Consequences (2003), which established Smith's presence as an on-camera correspondent, Beyond Baghdad (2004), Private Warriors (2005), and Gangs of Iraq (2007).
He has just completed The Rise of ISIS (2014), a fifth film on Iraq investigating the circumstances and context leading to ISIS's emergence.
Smith has also done extensive reporting on business and financial issues. He collaborated on a landmark series on the global economic crisis, Money, Power and Wall Street (2012), which was awarded a 2013 George Polk Award, Smith's fourth. The jury cited the series for the way it "dissected and distilled down the complicated subject of the modern credit derivative market and provided a sober look inside the struggle to rescue and repair this country's battered economy."
His business reporting also includes Dot Con, about the internet bubble; Heat about how business leaders have reacted to calls for carbon reduction in the face of climate change; The Madoff Affair (2009), an investigation into the world's largest Ponzi scheme; College Inc. (2010) and Educating Sergeant Pantzke (2011), two examinations of for-profit education that significantly influenced debate on Capitol Hill and at the Department of Veteran Affairs; The Retirement Gamble (2013), about the 401(k) industry and America's impending retirement crisis; and To Catch a Trader (2014), a film about Steven A. Cohen and insider trading.
Smith's The Untouchables (2013) examined the Justice Department's failure to hold Wall Street bankers accountable for mortgage fraud in the run up to the 2008 collapse. The report sparked an enormous reaction after its initial airing. Two U.S. Senators, citing Smith's interview with a senior Justice Department official, demanded that Attorney General Eric Holder explain whether his department's failure to investigate big banks stems from fear of collateral consequences. Several US attorneys' offices have screened the film and re-committed publicly to bringing cases related to Wall Street fraud.
Smith was born Jan. 28, 1949, and raised on a citrus farm in Riverside, CA, and later in Los Angeles. He studied Comparative Literature at Brown University and has a BFA from the Institute of Film and Television at New York University. He is on the board of the Overseas Press Club and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He lives in New York City with his wife and producing partner Marcela Gaviria. He is the father of five children.
