BIOGRAPHYMichael Ray Smith smith@featurewriting.net910.658-7900http://www.lib.campbell.edu/harrington-papersAmazon search, see Contemporary Authors: Biography - Smith, Michael Ray (1955-) Michael Ray Smith is part of the interactive and multimedia media charge with news and persuasive communication. In late 2015 College Media Advisers presented Smith with Noel Ross Strader Memorial Award for exercising the principle of freedom of the press "at some risk to personal or professional welfare." In addition, in 2015 the student online news site, readmybeacon.com, placed second in nation for the academic category in Evangelical Press Association competition. He is a Fulbright Specialist Program specialist for the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. In early 2015 Michael Ray Smith was appointed to the office of Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels for his work. He sometimes works as talent for commercials. Another role Michael plays is in assisting in advising on public relation issues, particularly in the context of news. He spends his time teaching in Tennessee at Lee University after a season in South Florida, not far from island of Palm Beach. His Palm Beach Atlantic University students covered the major candidates during the turbulent presidental race of 2016 where the students covered the leading candidates in person. He spent 11 years at Campbell University, 30 miles south of Raleigh, leading their student newspaper and web site to state and national recognition. The Campbell Times student newspaper tied with prestigious Elon University in the "Best of Show" competition in 2014. In 2012 journalismdegree.org named him one of the best 50 journalism educators in the nation. http://journalismdegree.org/top-professors/ Also in 2012, Campbell University selected Smith for the first teaching excellence award for all the six schools of the university, which includes law and pharmacy. World Journalism Institute, formerly in Manhattan and now Asheville, N.C., named him the John McCandlish Phillips Scholar for 2011. Philips was the internationally-known reporter for The New York Times in the 1960s. The New Yorker has called John McCandlish Phillips "more interested in the truth and texture of a story than in scoring a scoop."

 Smith earned a Ph.D. from Regent University and taught at state and private universities, at graduate and undergraduate schools and served as a journalism professor, professor of communication studies and professor of mass communication at various institutions. An award-winning journalist and photographer, he has been quoted in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today, The Arizona Republic, The Christian Science Monitor, The Louisville Courier-Journal, Editor & Publisher, Christianity Today, Writer's Digest and many other periodicals. He has been a guest on radio and TV including French TV 24, a Paris-based television broadcast, and online sites such as Ourblook.com. He has written seven books, nine peer-reviewed journal articles and hundreds of articles for the popular press. His chapter on "Labels in Media Bias" is part of the 2007 book, Media Bias, Finding It, Fixing It. "7 Days to a Byline that Pays" and "FeatureWriting.Net" explore popular writing and "The Jesus Newspaper" explores the idea of the Christian journalist. His "A Free Press in Freehand: The Spirit of American Blogging in the Handwritten Newspapers of John McLean Harrington 1858-1869" was released in 2011. Michael spent a decade working in the newsroom and more than two decades working in the classroom. In 2008 Shippensburg University, his graduate school, honored him as a Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, the highest award presented by the university. That same year Prince George's Community College in suburban Washington, D.C., recognized him as one of its top 50 graduates. He has presented workshops on writing in the United States and overseas including a seminar on magazine writing for Magazine Training International. He works with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication on issues of equity and disability and in 2013 he led the Small Group Interest Group for AEJMC. He speaks at Evangelical Press Association and Christian writer conferences. His latest books, "7 Days to a Byline That Pays" and "The ABC List of Feature Ideas," are being used by some universities as textbooks. Published by Lighthouse Publishers of the Carolinas, Smith is working on another book, tentatively titled, "How I Write," with interviews with professional writers.