Mike Smartt OBE is the founder and editor-in-chief of BBC News Online, the BBC's Internet news service. He began the service in 1996, and has held the post of editor-in-chief continuously since then. Originally, many had doubts about the feasibility of the service, including Smartt's friend and fellow BBC reporter John Simpson, who described the project as sounding "quite nerdy". At 2003 European Online Journalism Awards , he received an award for outstanding contribution to online journalism in Europe, and in 2004 he was made an OBE for services to broadcasting.

Before being placed in charge of the launch of the online service, he was a correspondent for BBC television.

External links

• dotJournalism speaks to the man behind Britain's most popular news web site... http://www.journalism.co.uk/profiles/profile.shtml/
• BBC News Online - Front Page http://news.bbc.co.uk/
• About BBC News - News Interactive http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/hi/this_is_bbc_news/newsid_3280000/3280463.st
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• See the site from 1997 to present at Archive.org http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.bbc.co.uk/news/
• OBE for BBC website founder http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3799141.stm
• The NetMedia European Online Journalism Awards 2003 http://www.net-media.co.uk/awards/winners.asp