Joanna Smith

Joanna Smith is a political reporter in the Ottawa bureau of the Toronto Star. She regularly covers health policy, but after spending nearly a year buried in the minute details of the H1N1 pandemic she suddenly found herself on a bumpy road into Port-au-Prince to cover the devastating aftermath of the earthquake that struck Haiti.

Smith was already a fan of the role social media can play in bringing real-time reporting and interactivity with readers to journalism, but in a land of spotty communications Twitter soon became a lifeline and a fascinating way to tell hundreds of riveting stories in 140 characters or less.

Smith began covering Parliament Hill in September 2008 and was previously a general assignment reporter in Toronto. She has also worked at the Globe and Mail and graduated from Concordia University in 2006 with an undergraduate degree in journalism and the liberal arts.

Read her work on www.thestar.com and www.twitter.com/smithjoanna.