Rex Smith

I live in a great neighborhood – a place on the edge of a little city, where suburbia kind of meets the rolling hills of the Upstate countryside. It's not just the place we like, though; it’s the people, too.

(Airs 06/06/25 @ 3 p.m. & 06/08/25 @ 6 p.m.) The Media Project is an inside look at media coverage of current events with former Times Union Editor, current Upstate American, Substack columnist Rex Smith, Judy Patrick, former Vice President of the New York Press Association and former Editor of the Daily Gazette, Barbara Lombardo, Adjunct Professor at the University at Albany and former Editor of the Saratogian, and Mitra Kalita, veteran journalist, media executive, commentator, author and CEO of url-media.com. On this week’s Media Project, Rex, Judy, Barbara and Mitra talk about how media has changed over the years, and a deeper look at Mitra’s career and current venture.

My daughter is the latest in a line of fine tennis players in our family, so we have an annual end-of-summer dad-and-daughter tradition of spending a day at the U.S. Open. The other day we were on the phone together when early bird tickets went on sale, and within minutes we scored great seats. At one point, as we were looking at an online chart of Arthur Ashe Stadium, my late-Millennial kid asked, “I can’t imagine how you bought tickets before you had the internet.”

(Airs 05/30/25 @ 3 p.m. & 06/01/25 @ 6 p.m.) The Media Project is an inside look at media coverage of current events with former Times Union Editor, current Upstate American, Substack columnist Rex Smith, Judy Patrick, former Editor of the Daily Gazette, Barbara Lombardo, Adjunct Professor at the University at Albany and former Editor of the Saratogian, and WAMC News Director Ian Pickus. On this week’s Media Project, Rex, Judy, Barbara and Ian talk about the pressure on student reporters, the commencement speech by 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley, and much more.

American history records some notorious criminals and ne’er-do-wells, but my favorite, who I learned about when I moved out west as a kid, might be a stagecoach robber on the frontier who was known as Black Bart.

(Airs 05/23/25 @ 3 p.m. & 05/25/25 @ 6 p.m.) The Media Project is an inside look at media coverage of current events with former Times Union Editor, current Upstate American, Substack columnist Rex Smith, Judy Patrick, former Editor of the Daily Gazette, Barbara Lombardo, Adjunct Professor at the University at Albany and former Editor of the Saratogian, and Daily Gazette Editor Miles Reed. On this week’s Media Project, Rex, Judy, Barbara and Miles talk about whether the media is to blame for not uncovering President Biden’s cognitive decline, when A-I gets in wrong, and much more.

You know what was fun about being a newspaper editor? Well, from my 30 years leading newsrooms, I might say a lot of things, but today I’m thinking in particular of this: picking the comics.

(Airs 05/16/25 @ 3 p.m. & 05/18/25 @ 6 p.m.) The Media Project is an inside look at media coverage of current events with former Times Union Editor, current Upstate American, Substack columnist Rex Smith, Judy Patrick, former Editor of the Daily Gazette, Barbara Lombardo, Adjunct Professor at the University at Albany and former Editor of the Saratogian, and Daily Gazette Editor Miles Reed, and. On this week’s Media Project, Rex, Judy, Barbara and Miles talk about the importance of local media and sticking with a story, who decides what news is, whether reporters failed in their coverage of former President Biden’s cognitive abilities, and much more.

When we are young and struggling to figure out who we are, we sometimes try on labels and personas to see what fits. I was 19 years old, I think, when I was upbraided by an older and wiser fellow at my college – he was 21, and a philosophy major, for heaven’s sake, which I considered pretty exotic.

(Airs 05/09/25 & 05/11/25 @ 6 p.m.) The Media Project is an inside look at media coverage of current events with former Times Union Editor, current Upstate American, Substack columnist Rex Smith, Judy Patrick, former Editor of the Daily Gazette, Daily Gazette Editor Miles Reed, and Daily Freeman Publisher Emeritus Ira Fusfeld. On this week’s Media Project, Rex, Judy, Miles and Ira talk about whether reporters should correct the President more aggressively when he makes false statements, whether niche journalism has a future, and much more.