Michael A. Smith

Recipient of the STAR OPINION WRITER OF THE YEAR award in The Charles E. Green Awards (2024)

Michael A. Smith
Galveston county daily news

Judge’s Comments:

In a series of compelling and timely editorials, the Galveston County Daily News consistently provided clarity to the complexities of modern life. In both signed and unsigned editorials, Michael A. Smith, who also serves as the Daily News’ editor, wrote with precision and insight about a La Marque city councilman who owed $43,000 in property taxes at a time when the county needed these valuable resources. A League City advisory board was also taken to task when it overstepped its authority in relegating a child’s book to the top shelf of a library; only two of the six board members voted to move the book that they believed promoted LGBTQ lifestyles, a claim countered by the book’s supporters. Smith also offered a deftly written analysis of a successful Galveston County mixed-use development — years in the making — that included low-income housing. His analysis tracked the life of the project, showing readers how even with best intentions, these housing projects live or die by the public and private interests that drive them. These are but three examples of the breadth of his balanced work, supported by in-depth reporting and anchored with historical context and written with a graceful style that was inviting to read. In a category with keen competition, The Galveston County Daily News and writer Michael A. Smith produced a body of work that honors the tenets of an exemplary editorial page.

Bill Celis
Journalist, educator and author

Judge’s Bio:
Bill Celis is a journalist, educator and author. For 20 years he worked at leading Texas and U.S. dailies. He is a former national correspondent for the New York Times and a former reporter and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He also worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a general assignments reporter and for the El Paso Times State staff.

For 25 years he served as a professor of journalism, first at the University of Colorado at Boulder and at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where over 21 years he earned tenure and served as associate director, program director and associate dean responsible for undergraduate and graduate curriculum, assessment, recruitment, diversity in the classroom and the recruitment of diverse students, staff and faculty.

In 2010 he led the school-wide committee that produced the first diversity audit of any USC school, winning the 2012 Diversity and Equity Award from the Association of Educators of Mass Communication and Journalism.

Among other teaching awards he won the 2018 Barry Bingham Fellowship, awarded annually to journalism educators for their work in diversity.

He is the author of, "Battle Rock: A One-Room School in America's Vanishing West" (Public Affairs, 2003), and is working on another book about disenfranchised children.

He earned his undergraduate degree in 1978 in journalism at Howard Payne University (Brownwood, Texas) and a master's degree in 1982 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in San Antonio, his hometown.

To read Michael A. Smith’s prize-winning commentary, please click the links below:

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