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Joel Smith, a former Detroit News reporter, who won his share of journalism awards, died Tuesday of heart failure at Pioneer Specialty Hospital in Pontiac, the Detroit News reports. He was 68.
Smith was a hard-digging reporter who also liked to schmooze in the newsroom and appreciated a good piece of office gossip. He was one of the true characters in the newsroom.
Detroit News reporter Tom Greenwood, a former colleague of Smith's, wrote in his obit:
To say that former Detroit News reporter Joel Smith was a complicated, multi-talented individual would be a vast understatement.
Anyone who ever worked with him would readily agree that he was a sometimes prickly journalist with a low tolerance for lazy reporters, corrupt officials and evasive politicians.
“His reporting on corruption and mismanagement helped lead to the reform of the Wayne County government in the 1980s, and later to the reform of Detroit Metropolitan Airport,” Nolan Finley, editorial page director for The Detroit News, said in the obit..
“He was one of the lead reporters on the Flight 255 plane crash as well as lead reporter on the Oakland County child murders.”
Smith didn't put up with much b.s.
Once during the FBI investigation into then-Detroit Police Chief William Hart, an investigative reporter for the News, who was out of town, called Smith in the newsroom to ask a question. He wanted to know he could find out if a police plane had ever flown to the city he was currently at.
The reporter who asked the question was very secretive and didn't want to share much information with his colleagues.
Smith asked the reporter where he was at, to which the reporter responded:
"I can't tell you."
Smith hung up. -- Allan Lengel
