[1][2] After a spell as a journalist in local radio in Manchester, she joined the staff of The Sunday Times in 1979 and stayed at the newspaper until 1984, although Smith still contributes book reviews, usually on crime fiction, to the publication.

[5] In November 2011, she gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press and media standards following the telephone hacking practised by the News of the World.

She testified that she considered celebrities thought they could control press content if they put themselves into the public domain when, in reality the opposite was more likely.

Although Smith was opposed to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, disputing the false claims about the Saddam Hussein regime's possession of Weapon of mass destruction, she took a different view during the Syrian civil war.

[7] In 2013, the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson appointed Smith as a co-chair of the city's Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Board and she continued the role under his successor Sadiq Khan.

She is a keen supporter of Classics in state schools, describing the 1997–2010 Labour government's failure to act on the matter as "hardly their finest hour"[1] and is a patron of The Iris Project.