Emmy Award-Winning Journalist • News, Lifestyle & Multimedia Expert • Executive Producer & Professor • Host & Visual Storyteller • Media Consultant & Blogger • Certified Nutrition Specialist
AT A GLANCE
Olivia Smith is an Emmy Award-winning, multi-platform journalist based in Los Angeles. She is the Executive Producer of Next Generation Storytelling at ABC7. Olivia is responsible for leading a team of Community Journalists and for helping drive innovative storytelling techniques across the organization. She is a manager as well as an active content creator. Olivia focuses on telling stories for all media platforms in addition to supervising and training others at the company. Prior to ABC7, Olivia helped build the digital video teams for ABC Network News and Good Morning America.
Olivia has reported from the Oscars red carpet, from a marijuana field, from the top of a mountain and from a sleeper bus across the country. She has covered topics like female genital cutting and black market drugs. Olivia has been to wildfires, chased kidnappers, traveled to political conventions and even become a mermaid for a day. She is most passionate about human interest and feature reporting.
Olivia has a number of passion projects outside of her day job. She is the founder and creator of Get Savvy with Social, a media and lifestyle company and blog, and she offers media consulting services. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Olivia is a Certified Nutrition Specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine as well. She is also a children’s book author of a series she created with her father about detective dogs.
Olivia is a content creator with extensive experience of 20+ years in print, broadcast, multimedia and digital journalism, as well as with local, national and international reporting. She has worked on stories for several media organizations throughout her career, including ABC News, Good Morning America, CNN, CNN Business, 60 Minutes, Al Jazeera, NY1 News and the Columbia Journalism Review.
Follow Olivia for day-to-day updates on her work @LivNews, #LivWell and #GetSavvyWithSocial.
CURRENT WORK
As Executive Producer of Next Generation Storytelling at ABC7 and The Walt Disney Company, Olivia leads and manages a team of Community Journalists covering Southern California. Her reporters often focus on underrepresented communities, giving a voice to all who live in Los Angeles. As the station’s first-ever Executive Producer in this role, Olivia continues to build and oversee her team’s workflow in addition to focusing on new storytelling techniques and formats. She understands the importance of using innovative methods to create visual stories, series and specials for emerging audiences across platforms, from digital to streaming to television. Olivia also assists with approving television newscasts as an EP.
Olivia is a multimedia expert, proficient in shooting, writing, editing, reporting, producing and publishing content for both television and digital audiences. She regularly gives feedback on performance and trains her team and other station employees to learn new skills. In addition, she develops and leads trainings for ABC OTV employees and talent across the country and teaches new equipment. Olivia is also an expert at remote and virtual training and managing. She leads by example and contributes to reporting, including creating, hosting and producing an in-depth streaming and broadcast series called Hidden History. She also has a social media series she created called Sound Smart. While she is an expert with DSLR and C100 cameras, she also specializes in mobile journalism, producing entire pieces with mobile-only technology.
Olivia’s first role at ABC was with the network, where she helped build their digital video teams from the start and worked as a reporter for both broadcast and digital. She was one of the first digital video hires for ABC News. She then moved to Good Morning America, developing content for and through the digital platform’s launch in the role of Deputy Video Supervisor. Olivia has experience working as a correspondent across digital platforms for live reports, streams and segments as well as reporting live for network television and special reports. She was one of the first to host and produce for ABC News Live and for ABC’s Facebook show On Location.
Olivia started working at ABC in New York before becoming the first digital video journalist and digital point person for the network in the Los Angeles bureau. From there, she has grown into new roles on evolving teams. Olivia has experience operating as a one-woman band, and she has done everything from in-depth magazine-style and documentary pieces to experimenting with new technology for storytelling.
Olivia has created, hosted and anchored different series and video franchises, including a live stream show called Healthy Living, an Instagram Story series called On Trend, explainer videos on everyday oddities and health and science facts called Did You Know That? and an interactive quiz show called Know The News. She created and produced the investigative series Underground, which you can find on Hulu and OTT platforms along with other Digital Features. She also produced one of the first series for Facebook Watch.
HONORS & AWARDS
Olivia co-produced a documentary, Dead Horse Bay, which was the first-ever piece to be nominated and to win an Emmy Award for ABC News’ digital unit. She won an Emmy Award as part of the team at Good Morning America as well. Olivia was also nominated for an Emmy Award as a television correspondent for ABC News’ special report of the Solar Eclipse.
During her time at the digital unit, ABCNews.com was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Website. The company was later awarded again with the Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence two years in a row while Olivia was there. Olivia also reported for the social news team, which was nominated for the Shorty Awards.
Olivia’s reporting on FGC/FGM in the U.S. was nominated for a Webby Award. She has held a CNN Fellowship, an Emerging Journalist Fellowship and she has traveled abroad on a Fulbright grant.
A California native, Olivia began her journalism career at 15 with a front-page exposé for her town newspaper about a rat problem at the local high school. She wrote a weekly column on world issues for the paper as well. Olivia was also the Editor-in-Chief of her high school newspaper.
EDUCATION
Olivia earned her master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she received honors for her reporting and for her thesis on a mysterious food allergy. One of her investigative, environmental pieces was featured at the program’s first Innovation Showcase.
Olivia earned her bachelor’s degree from New York University, where she studied communications and liberal arts. During her time at NYU, Olivia wrote for the school paper as well as literary and poetry magazines. She also spent a semester living abroad in Paris, France.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Olivia’s passion for teaching and mentoring extends beyond her day job. After work, she teaches graduate and undergraduate journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism where she focuses on visual journalism. She collaborates between her roles with ABC7 and USC on new learning opportunities. She co-created, pitched and organized a specialized race and culture internship between the two.
Olivia is the founder and creator of her company and blog, Get Savvy with Social, LLC, which specializes in media, technology and lifestyle content. She also offers workshops and media consulting services, including social media management, content creation, copywriting, website development, design, SEO, Google Workspace, newsletters and digital marketing.
Olivia has moderated panels, guest lectured at universities and spoken at events about her work and topics she covers. She has appeared on CBS News Sunday Morning to talk about social media, and on C-SPAN to discuss the future of journalism. Olivia has also been profiled by media outlets, including As Told By Women, Confessions of a Fit Chick and Eat My News.
When Olivia isn’t reporting, she’s most likely writing, traveling, exploring and staying active. She enjoys volunteer work and mentoring other journalists. Olivia is a member of the Online News Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Journalism & Women Symposium, Women@Disney and the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators.
Olivia is also a children’s book author of a series called Dog Detectives Jacob and Bricks. The series is based on stories she created with her father when she was a child.
Olivia worked in New York City for a decade before relocating to the West Coast. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son and dog. Fun fact (if you’ve made it all the way down here!), her middle name is Maeve.