A onetime business editor at the Detroit Free Press who was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the city's 1967 riot and was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame has died.
David Charles Smith, 93, passed away at his home on Thursday with his wife of 67 years, Isabelle, at his side, according to his family obituary.
Smith was respected for his humor, wit and most of all his journalism acumen, having mentored many reporters and editors during his long career as a reporter, columnist and editor.
Longtime Free Press auto critic Mark Phelan first met Smith in 1986 when Smith hired Phelan to work at Ward’s Auto World. Phelan said Smith periodically would share his memories of covering the 1967 riot and winning the Pulitzer.
"He was incredibly proud of it," Phelan said. "He was right downtown in the newsroom when the city was in flames and the 82nd Airborne was driving tanks through the streets and people were being shot in the streets. He had his reporters there covering it. He remembered it vividly.”
Paul Eisenstein, editor of Headlight.news, said he got to know Smith decades ago when Eisenstein started his career in Detroit as a contract correspondent for NPR.
"I was told that Dave not only could provide a good quote on some automotive topics but really offer insight few others had. That proved true on both counts," Eisenstein said. "He clearly served as a mentor as I learned more about the auto industry and automotive journalism."
As a person, Eisenstein said Smith liked to be "the tough guy" with his U.S. Marine veteran roots shining through.
"But it was classic bark-worse-than-bite syndrome," Eisenstein said in an email. "He was kind and always had time for me when needed. He and Isabelle always were able to have fun on various events when they were together. And even if Dave was snapping at someone, he had that twinkle in his eye. He was a classic journalist of a very different era. And he deserved his reputation as dean of automotive journalists."
Growing up in Michigan
Smith was born in 1931 in Mount Clemens, the sixth of eight children, and, according to his family obituary, the family was short of money amid the Great Depression. With no way to pay for college, Smith worked at the local post office as he grew up. It was there that he first saw a young Isabelle Johnston. But she had a boyfriend at the time, so Smith enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. and served three years in Korea.
When he returned, he enrolled in Central Michigan University under the GI Bill. He had planned to get a teaching degree, but he took some elective journalism classes, "and the rest was history," his family obituary said.
Smith started off as sports editor of the Central Michigan Life student newspaper in 1958. He received the Ralph M. Byers Award given to a student showing outstanding promise as a journalist, according to Headlight.news.
He later transferred to University of Michigan and learned from his brother, also a student at U-M, that Isabelle Johnston had just enrolled in a master’s program there. Smith took Johnston out for coffee and six months later they married, his family obituary stated.
Winning a Pulitzer
With a degree in hand, Smith embarked on a career in journalism working as a columnist for the Detroit Times, Toledo Blade and Wall Street Journal.
Smith's daughter Erin Millerschin told the Free Press that the family moved from California, where her father worked at The Wall Street Journal, to Detroit in 1964 for him to take a job as the business and financial editor at the Free Press, where he contributed to the coverage of the 1967 Detroit riot.
"He worked at the Detroit Free Press for six years," Millerschin said by email. "He used to take me and my sister Shannon to the Detroit Free Press on many Saturdays to check the final copy and presses. I still remember the smell of the Wonder Bread factory right off the freeway heading downtown from Birmingham and feeling VERY excited about being in the mix of the newsroom with my dad."
Millerschin said her father was part of a four-reporter team covering the 1967 riot.
"It may have been the story and award he was most proud of because he believed it was a defining moment in Detroit’s history and the U.S.," Millerschin said. "I remember my dad getting a call while we were on a family vacation as the riots broke out. He rushed us into the station wagon and we quickly traveled home so he could cover the story."
Shaping a new publication
In 1970, Smith joined Ward’s Auto World as editor-at-large. Smith is remembered for having "helped shift it from a stodgy automotive newsletter into a must-read magazine for industry executives, engineers and others," wrote Headlight.news. In fact, former General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner is said to have described Smith as "the image of what a journalist can and should be," his family obituary said.
Phelan said Smith wanted Ward's Auto World to have a unique look, so he hired Free Press cartoonist Dick Mayer to do the covers every month, while Mayer still worked for the Detroit Free Press.
"Dick was a good friend of Dave's and he would work at the Free Press until the end of his shift every day and then he would come into Ward's and read the cover stories and draw these wonderful color portraits and cartoons that would be the cover and they were the signature look of the magazine for decades," Phelan said.
Smith turned Ward's from a "quiet little company" into a magazine that covered the "business of the auto industry as a business not just shiny parts and fast cars," Phelan said. Smith sought to write stories with a forward-thinking point of view to generate discussions.
As a person, Smith had his ritutals, such as always smoking a pipe, Phelan said.
"Whenever he quit smoking his pipe, he would just bum cigarettes off people," Phelan said. "He adored U-M football. He tweaked people, he loved to joke and push a little bit. But he always had his people’s back when they were reporting and whenever anyone complained about a story, because he already made sure that story was as good as it could be. He was funny too. He would rib people, but he could take a joke too."
Marge Sorge worked with Smith from 1988 to 1995 at Ward's when she was the former managing editor and executive editor there. "I lost one of my best mentors and friends," she said Monday.
"Dave was a mentor to many young journalists," Sorge wrote in an email. "He was demanding and taught us to dig deeper into every assignment until we were sure we had the whole story and that, above all, we were right. He was the ultimate news guy. I am sure he is in heaven interviewing everyone who went before him and is getting the whole story."
Eisenstein said that, for many years, Smith remained someone he would routinely call for both quotes and guidance.
A WWII buff
After retiring from Ward’s in mid-2002, Smith continued to contribute his automotive industry insights to the publication from his 30 years of industry coverage, Millerschin said. In 2005, he was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame with the moniker, “Mr. Automotive," Headlight.news said.
Beyond journalism, Smith had a keen interest in World War II history. So he and his longtime friend Hugh McCann, who was also part of the reporting team at the Free Press covering the riot, co-authored the book "The Search for Johnny Nicholas." It is about the only known Black American intelligence agent in Nazi-occupied Europe, his daughter Millerschin said.
McCann died in 2014 in Traverse City at age 86, according to his family obituary.
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Contact Jamie L. LaReau:jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter@jlareauan. Read more onGeneral Motorsand sign up for ourautos newsletter.Become a subscriber.
