Despite the fact that National Public Radio is a publicly supported network, its long-term financial struggles claimed another casualty on Tuesday: Tell Me More, a program “expressly designed to have a primary appeal for African-American listeners and other people of color” will air its last episode on Friday, August 1.
The move will leave 28 people unemployed, and program host Michel Martin admitted to having “scar tissue” before releasing a statement in which she asserted: “I hoped we could have found a way to save the show, but NPR news management has assured me that the mission that we’ve undertaken will continue in new ways, and I’m sticking around be a part of making that happen.”
Tavis Smiley
By Randy Hall | May 21, 2014 | 8:29 PM EDT
By Paul Bremmer | March 27, 2014 | 5:40 PM EDT
On Wednesday night, Tavis Smiley welcomed film director Errol Morris onto the set of his PBS program to talk about Morris’ new documentary on former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Unlike Bill Maher, who challenged Morris when he interviewed him last Friday, Smiley joined Morris in maligning Rumsfeld throughout the entire interview.
Smiley seemed appalled that Rumsfeld ever came to be in charge of the Defense Department, and by extension managing the prosecution of the Iraq War. He remarked to Morris:
By Jeffrey Meyer | February 5, 2014 | 2:53 PM EST
A few weeks ago, PBS host Tavis Smiley got in some hot water for comments he made about Edward Snowden. On January 19, Smiley appeared as a guest on ABC’s This Week w/ George Stephanopoulos and argued that, “Edward Snowden might be on a postage stamp somewhere down the road.”
Despite the controversy surrounding Smiley’s extreme comments, the PBS host took to his nightly program on February 4th to double down and argue that someday Snowden would be viewed not as a traitor but rather an “American hero.” [See video below.]
By Jeffrey Meyer | January 19, 2014 | 6:31 PM EST
Tavis Smiley is known for making extreme statements that make even his fellow liberals cringe in fear. Whether he is comparing the Tea Party to Jihad or saying Republicans only oppose ObamaCare because they hate the president, the PBS host never stops making inflammatory comments.
Appearing on This Week w/ George Stephanopoulos on January 19, Smiley asserted that, “I think very quickly that in the long run, Edward Snowden, we were joking earlier, Edward Snowden might be on a postage stamp somewhere down the road. How history is going to regard what Mr. Obama has done in this moment is an open question.” [See video after jump.]
Oliver Stone: White Republicans Behave Like This Is South Africa and They’re Fighting for Rights of Whites
By Noel Sheppard | November 14, 2013 | 11:57 AM EST Filmmaker Oliver Stone made some truly offensive comments on PBS’s Tavis Smiley show Wednesday.
“I don't know why these Republican white people...They're strange to me," he said. "It’s almost as if we’re an apartheid state and they’re still fighting for the rights of whites in South Africa” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | October 11, 2013 | 12:34 PM EDT
PBS's Tavis Smiley made a comment Thursday that every African-American as well as liberal media member should sit up and take notice.
Appearing on Fox News's Hannity, Smiley said, "The data is going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Brent Baker | September 22, 2013 | 4:00 PM EDT
PBS put its late-night leftism on display on Meet the Press when PBS host Tavis Smiley used his slot, on the Sunday morning NBC News show’s panel, to regret President Barack Obama’s supposed touting of “American Exceptionalism” and claim the presumed desire of conservatives in the House, to shut down the federal government, means “we are going to lose our democracy. It’s that serious.”
Smiley fretted that “the President recently, much to my chagrin, spoke of, advanced once again, this notion of American Exceptionalism, and clearly he isn’t the only one in town who likes to push that notion that we as Americans are exceptional.”
By Noel Sheppard | September 22, 2013 | 3:45 PM EDT
On NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, PBS host Tavis Smiley spouted the tired media meme that the only reason Republicans are opposed to ObamaCare is because they hate the President.
Fortunately for viewers, The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol was there to say, "If Nancy Pelosi or John Kerry were president, Republicans would have voted against Kerrycare or Pelosicare. It's not personal to President Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Jack Coleman | September 16, 2013 | 4:52 PM EDT
Further proof that purported academic and occasional hip-hop recording artist Cornel West has no intention of ever again being taken seriously.
On the weekend podcast he shares with Tavis Smiley, West talked about the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., which occurred 50 years ago yesterday. (Audio after the jump)
By Noel Sheppard | September 10, 2013 | 11:57 AM EDT
PBS's Tavis Smiley had some harsh words Sunday for President Obama's planned attack on Syria.
During his Smiley and West radio program, Tavis said, "It’s one thing to honor Martin with our words in Washington one day, and then 48 hours later start making plans to dishonor him with our deeds in Syria...He ought to just take that bust out of the Oval Office if he’s going to dishonor Martin in this way" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | August 31, 2013 | 12:02 AM EDT
Cornel West had some harsh comments for MSNBC's Al Sharpton and Michael Eric Dyson Friday.
Early in the radio show "Smiley and West," West said of the previous day's commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, "We saw of course the coronation of the bonafide house negro of the Obama plantation, our dear brother Al Sharpton, supported by the Michael Dysons and others who’ve really prostituted themselves intellectually in a very ugly and vicious way" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Jack Coleman | July 22, 2013 | 7:20 PM EDT
What a surprise -- one of President Obama's biggest critics from way over on the left is also no big fan of his administration's main apologists in media, MSNBC.
Author, activist and Princeton professor Cornel West let loose with some pointed criticism of the cable network on his weekend radio show with Tavis Smiley. (Audio after the jump).