Ron F. Smith is a professor of journalism at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Smith has worked for newspapers in Indiana, Ohio and Florida, and published numerous articles in Journalism Quarterly, Newspaper Research Journal, Collegiate Journalist, Quill and Journalism Eudcator. He was a research fellow at the Poynter Institute and co-authored Groping for Ethics in Journalism with Gene Goodwin, assuming sole authorship on the fourth edition.