In his 40 years producing and reporting, Martin Smith has covered the world: from revolution in Central America and the fall of communism in Russia, to the rise of Al Qaeda and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the inside story of the global financial meltdown. Smith has often been ahead of the news curve. He was among the first journalists to investigate Col. Oliver North’s clandestine Contra arms network and one of the first western reporters to investigate the emergence of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network.

His most recent production is FRONTLINE’s landmark three-part docuseries, America and the Taliban (2023), which chronicles America’s longest war.

Smith has won every major award in television including four DuPont Columbia Gold Batons, five Peabody Awards, and eight Emmys. He’s also a four-time recipient of the George Polk Award for Investigative journalism, a rare achievement. In 2014 he received the John Chancellor Award, presented by Columbia University to a reporter with courage and integrity for cumulative professional accomplishments.

As Producer and Senior Foreign Correspondent for FRONTLINE, Smith has produced over 50 hours of award-winning programming, including The Terrorist and the Superpower, which was produced three years before 9/11. A copy of the film was requested by Vice President Dick Cheney’s office immediately after the attacks.

In the three months following 9/11, Smith produced two seminal films on the genesis of the attacks — Looking for Answers (2001) and Saudi Time Bomb? (2001). Since the invasion of Iraq, Smith has covered the conflict for FRONTLINE with a series of films, including Truth, War and Consequences (2003), which established Smith’s presence as an on-camera correspondent, Beyond Baghdad (2004), Private Warriors (2005), and Gangs of Iraq (2007). His film, The Rise of ISIS (2014), investigated the circumstances and context leading to ISIS’s emergence. He followed that in 2016 with Confronting ISIS a film that received the prestigious Peabody Award. In 2018, he published Bitter Rivals, a two hour documentary that examined the regional struggle for power between Iran and Saudi Arabia. That film was among six FRONTLINE films that won the series a DuPont Columbia Gold Baton, among the highest honors in broadcast journalism.

Other recent films from the region include The Crown Prince (2019), which investigates the rise and rule of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia (MBS) and The Jihadist (2021), an exclusive portrait of the former Al Qaeda leader, Abu Mohammad al Jolani.

Smith was born Jan. 28, 1949. He studied Comparative Literature at Brown University and has a BFA from the Institute of Film and Television at New York University. He lives in the Western Catskills with his producing partner and wife Marcela Gaviria.