Randall D. Smith joined the Missouri School of Journalism faculty in 2009 as the school’s first Donald W. Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism. Professor Smith taught two intermediate business journalism classes as well as a graduate seminar in media entrepreneurship for students who were in graduate programs at the business and journalism schools. Professor Smith recognized early the need for a place where students’ business journalism work could be published. With the help of his students in 2011, Smith envisioned and independently funded Missouri Business Alert to provide business news coverage to the entire state of Missouri. The program has had more than 500 Mizzou journalism students pass through its doors since its beginning. Before joining the university, Professor Smith had a 35-year career with a variety of news publications, including The Kansas City Star. Smith worked with award-winning news teams that have won the profession’s top honors. One won a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for coverage of the Hyatt skywalks disaster in July 1981.
The Randall D. Smith Fund in Business Journalism will support Missouri Business Alert, primarily, but also be used to create student reporting opportunities, lectures, and experiential trips to New York and other locales.