Margo Smit is ombudsman for journalistic productions at NPO, the Dutch public broadcasting system. Until 2015, she was an independent investigative TV-documentary filmmaker and director of the Dutch-Flemish Association of Investigative Journalists VVOJ. Smit is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and covered their #LuxLeaks investigation on tax evasion through Luxembourg for Dutch public TV. Smit is vice-chair of the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s Board of Directors, president of ONO (Organization of News Ombudsmen) and board member of Journalismfund.eu.

Smit teaches at various journalism schools in the Netherlands and Flanders. She studied journalism in the United States. In 1989 she began working as a news and features reporter for a Dutch commercial TV station 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 till 2009. Smit investigated, for example, the Dutch monarchy, nuclear safety and proliferation, accounting transparency at multinationals, Islam, honorary 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.