February 3, 2022

Veteran journalist Ron Smith was ratified as the new secretary of the INN board of directors at their meeting yesterday. Smith, who is currently the editor/program director of Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS), has served on the INN board for the past year as a member representative. In that role, he has spoken up for the interests of INN’s nonprofit member newsrooms like Milwaukee NNS.

“It’s important to me that INN continues to look at ways to serve members of all sizes.”

“It’s important to me that INN continues to look at ways to serve members of all sizes and not forget the small newsrooms like the one I lead,” Smith said. “I look forward to helping to lead, but I especially want to learn from our network. The time is now for nonprofit journalism.”

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service provides evidence-based journalism coverage of the city’s communities of color and is staffed by professionals, student-journalists and community residents. Ron is a huge supporter of aspiring journalists and helps students enter the field as an instructor of practice at the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Marquette University’s Diederich College of Communication. 

Prior to his role at NNS, Ron was the managing editor for news at USA Today. He previously served as deputy managing editor for daily news and production at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and has worked as an editor at The Oregonian, Los Angeles Times and Newsday.