This relatively concise biography is recommended for speaking engagements and reposting. However, please feel free to trim it down as needed, or to use only the first paragraph. Thank you! FS
Frank Smyth is an independent, award-winning investigative journalist specializing in armed conflicts, organized crime and human rights overseas, and on the gun movement and its influence in the United States. Frank is founder & CEO of GJS, the leading U.S.-based hostile environments training firm. He is an advisor to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the women’s empowerment group World Pulse. Smyth is a former arms trafficking investigator for Human Rights Watch breaking the role of France in arming Rwanda before its genocide. A global authority on journalist security and press freedom, Frank has testified before the U.S. House and Senate, and addressed member states of the Organization of American States, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Frank has covered El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, Jordan and Iraq where, in 1991, he was imprisoned for 18 days. He has written for The Nation, The Village Voice, The New Republic, Mother Jones, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs. Frank is co-author of Dialogue and Armed Conflict, and a contributor to The Iraq War Reader and Crimes of War. His study, “Painting the Maya Red: Military Doctrine and Speech in Guatemala’s Genocidal Acts,” was published by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Frank has been an on-camera commentator on gun issues for MSNBC.
Smyth has taught journalism and history at American University and the Corcoran College of Art + Design. He is a graduate of Boston College and The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. His clips are posted at www.franksmyth.com.