Mo. Paper Axes Journalist Shot on the Beat

A St. Louis-area reporter shot last year while covering a city council meeting has been laid off from his paper, the Riverfront Times reports. Todd Smith spent days in the hospital last February after taking a bullet in the hand in an attack that left seven dead. “This is the second shooting I know I can survive,” said Smith, 37. “It’s just a tough pill to swallow.”

Since the February 2008 shooting, Smith had been transferred from the metro beat to edit some of the Suburban Journals’ online editions. “I thought I was OK since the Internet and the website are the future, and performance-wise I was doing fine,” he said. “My family is obviously really not happy that I took a bullet for a business. But I guess in these economic times that isn't enough to save you.” (More gunshot wounds stories.)