Margo Smit is ombuds for journalistic content at the Dutch public broadcasting system, since 2017. From 2015, she was news ombuds at NOS, the Dutch public news provider. Previously, Smit was an independent investigative TV-documentary filmmaker and director of the Dutch-Flemish Association of Investigative Journalists VVOJ (2009-2015). Smit is president of the Organization of News Ombuds (ONO), and the current vice-chair of the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s Board. She is a guest lecturer on investigative journalism and ethics at national and international journalism schools and universities. Smit studied journalism in the United States, and in 1989 she began working as a news and features reporter for Dutch commercial TV station RTL, and later as their political correspondent. In 1997, she transferred to KRO Reporter, an investigative television documentary series on Dutch public TV, where she worked until 2009. Smit investigated the Dutch monarchy, nuclear safety and proliferation, accounting transparency at multinationals, Islam, honor killings, and the banking industry. She was co-producer of a KRO Profiel documentary on controversial politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, nominated for the Prix Europa in 2005. Smit is a (sleeping) member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and covered their #LuxLeaks investigation on tax evasion for Dutch public TV in 2014. She was on the jury of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom prize (2022-2024), and has also acted as a juror for the Daniel Pearl Award, the M.J. Brusseprijs for non-fiction in the Dutch language, the DIG Awards for investigative documentaries (Italy), and the Global Shining Light Award.

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