fbpx
17.5 F
Spokane
Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Steven A Smith

Steven A. Smith is clinical associate professor emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Media at the University of Idaho having retired from full-time teaching at the end of May 2020. He writes a weekly opinion column. Smith is former editor of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. As editor, Smith supervised all news and editorial operations on all platforms until his resignation in October 2008. Prior to joining The Spokesman-Review, Smith was editor for two years at the Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon, and was for five years editor and vice president of The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is a graduate of the Northwestern University Newspaper Management Center Advanced Executive Program and a mid-career development program at Duke University. He holds an M.A. in communication from The Ohio State University where he was a Kiplinger Fellow, and a B.S. in journalism from the University of Oregon.

How Russia’s Crimes Against Humanity Add to History’s Atrocities

Last week, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The court wants to bring Putin to trial but not for massacres of the innocent in occupied portions of Eastern Ukraine. The court does not want to bring Putin to trial for the indiscriminate bombing of civilians or the destruction of energy infrastructure that denies Ukrainians heat and electricity in winter. The International Criminal Court wants to bring Putin to trial for kidnapping children and sending them to Russia to live in orphanages or to be adopted by Russian homes.

Israel’s Hard Right Turn Compromises Democracy

To secure his sixth turn as prime minister, Netanyahu has forged a coalition with Israel’s most extreme political and religious interests. His retainers support settlement expansion on the West Bank further aggravating relations with Israeli Palestinians and prompting new violence.

What Makes It Journalism

Journalists are expected to tell the truth insofar as the truth can be discerned. But truth can be elusive. Merriam Webster defines truth in part as “a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality. [A] judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true. [T]he body of true statements and propositions.”

Can I Still Enjoy ‘Dilbert’ If My Values Collide With its Artist?

Is it possible to separate the art from the artist? Is it possible to enjoy a TV show, or a movie or even a comic strip if you know the creators held or hold opinions and values that you despise.

An Old Man’s Relief This Grim Winter Season

These may not be the end times, but they sure are crummy times in so many ways. So, it is more important than ever that we find diversion, find amusement, find relief. And I do not recall a time in recent memory when it has been harder to do that.

WA, OR State Legislatures Propose Bills to Solve Local News Media Crisis & It’s a Good Thing

American news media are in crisis, and the cities and towns news organizations have served are seeing those organizations shrink to mere shadows or cease to exist altogether.

When Your Landmarks Pass

My old landmarks are fading, the people who built them disappearing. That happens to all of us as we age. I have known this intuitively. But now I am experiencing it. And it is unsettling.

Must read