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The Albuquerque Journal has named a new city editor, Paul W. Smith.
Smith has worked in newspapers for 35 years and spent the last 10 at the Spokesman Review in Spokane, Washington as a managing editor overseeing business and audience engagement. In his career, Smith has worked on everything from reporting to editing to design.
“Paul brings a tremendous wealth of journalism knowledge to the Journal,” said Patrick Ethridge, executive editor and senior vice president of the Journal. “Paul and I share a vision for the newspaper that focuses on locally generated stories and digging beyond the surface to tell stories on a deeper level.”
Smith has had his eye on the Journal for a while and has made regular trips to New Mexico to enjoy the landscape and culture for years. He relocated to Albuquerque with his wife Paula Smith, who is the new associate dean of students and director of student rights and responsibilities at the University of New Mexico. The Smiths have two children in their 30s.
“One of the reasons we’re here is because we want to live in Albuquerque and the New Mexico area. The area offers a lot for people who are interested in various things. What we enjoy the most outside of just the beauty and the climate is the mix of cultures,” Smith said.
Smith started his career as a reporter in Lima, Ohio. He’s worked at eight newspapers, with long stints at the South Bend Tribune, where he was a metro editor and presentation editor, and at his most recent paper, the Spokesman Review. He plans for the Journal to be his last stop.
Smith found journalism in college, when an English professor told him he was a good writer.
“But I stayed with it because it actually is damned important. Democracy doesn’t exist without newspapers,” Smith said. “I don’t care what people want to say about newspapers nowadays or the media in general, but a free press, and I include all media in that, is critical to a functioning democracy and stability under democracy.”
Smith also believes newspapers can and should play an active role in improving quality of life within the communities they serve.
“If there’s a problem in the community or issues that people aren’t addressing or should address, we’ll figure out how people do it elsewhere in the world and we’ll show them as a means to help them make this place better,” Smith said.
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Ethridge said it was important to find a city editor who wanted to do more than just edit stories and fill pages.
“The search took several months because it was important to find someone with leadership skills, vision and passion for doing meaningful work. It’s a time of great transition in newsrooms as we look to tell our stories across multiple platforms,” Ethridge said. “Navigating through all the changes of a modern newsroom is no small task, but Paul is clearly up to the challenge.”
Smith said he feels lucky to be at a family-owned paper. Newspapers were closing at a rate of two per week in 2022, according to reporting by the Associated Press, and the number of locally owned papers has dwindled significantly.
“Those are islands in the corporately controlled mess, and people in this area need to know how lucky they are to have a newsroom and journalists and coverage that isn’t beholden to that and affected by that, because they’re far and few between nowadays,” Smith said.
The Journal had layoffs in March. Job losses can present challenges, but the paper is still well-staffed to fulfill its watchdog role and produce stories that reflect the community, Smith said.
“When people look at the pages and read the stories on the pages, they should see themselves on those pages,” Smith said.
Cathy Cook covers retail, commercial real estate and tourism for the Albuquerque Journal.
