Russ Smith is a newspaper publisher and columnist best known for founding the Baltimore City Paper, Washington City Paper and New York Press. After selling the Baltimore and Washington City Papers for $4 million, Smith founded New York Press in 1989. Like his previous papers, the press was an alternative weekly. It became a caustic rival with the well-established Village Voice. In 2002 Avalon Equity Partners, publisher of a chain of gay alternative weeklies including the New York Blade and the Washington Blade, purchased the paper from Smith, although they continued to publish his 10,000+ word weekly column, MUGGER. From 2003 to 2006, Smith wrote a column called "Right Field" for the Baltimore City Paper. A conservative Republican, Smith is a contributor to the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, a position that he has held since 1999; he also writes for the paper's "Taste" section. Other publications Smith has written for include Baltimore's Press Box, The New York Sun, and Jewish World Review. Smith worked at a Princeton University biology lab when he was 18, feeding rats, cleaning cages, and killing monkeys and cats used for lab experiments with chloroform.