By Noel Sheppard | September 1, 2012 | 9:14 AM EDT

Actress Krya Sedgwick said Friday that "people who live in New York and Los Angeles, they have a narrower view of the way people behave, of what’s important to people."

After telling PBS's Tavis Smiley, "I hope I don’t get in trouble for saying this," Sedgwick said this included race, abortion, and women's rights (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By Jack Coleman | July 18, 2012 | 9:11 PM EDT

Roseanne Barr made me laugh. Alas, it was 20 years ago. It was while she was a guest on Arsenio Hall's late night show and decided to rib the host. It's not often you meet a black nerd, Barr told Hall. Most nerds are white -- like you.

If Barr has said anything as piercing since, it's passed my attention. And what she said on the most recent Smiley & West radio show demonstrated how Barr has crossed the line from funny to delusional.

By Tim Graham | July 10, 2012 | 11:24 PM EDT

Actor James Earl Jones appeared on the public-radio show Smiley & West last weekend and discussed how he stuttered as a teenager. “There’s a certain terror I still have about confronting people.  I can’t debate, I can’t argue, I fall apart...I cannot be an activist, for instance, because of that.”

But as Brian Maloney reported, host Tavis Smiley wanted to draw his politics out. Jones quickly obliged by saying he simply cannot get enough of watching MSNBC, even though he is the voice of CNN, and agrees with the MSNBC notion that the Tea Party must be racist to oppose Obama (audio and transcript below):

By Noel Sheppard | July 4, 2012 | 10:17 AM EDT

Let's call a spade a spade: the arrogance, hypocrisy and racism of Salon's Joan Walsh knows no bounds.

On PBS's Tavis Smiley Show Monday, this so-called "editor at large" had the nerve to depict some Republicans as "a white, older base that doesn’t quite understand the way healthcare works" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By Noel Sheppard | June 21, 2012 | 10:27 AM EDT

As NewsBusters previously reported, Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman said Tuesday, "We’re going to be in a lot of trouble if we don't reelect [Barack Obama] because people on the other side of the fence scare me."

In the second part of his Tavis Smiley Show interview aired Wednesday on PBS Freeman said, "Women, Hispanics, blacks, there is a large attempt, a great attempt, at disenfranchisement" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By Noel Sheppard | June 20, 2012 | 9:04 AM EDT

Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman said Tuesday, "We’re going to be in a lot of trouble if we don't reelect" Barack Obama.

Appearing on PBS's Tavis Smiley show, Freeman added, "Because people on the other side of the fence scare me" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By Tim Graham | May 23, 2012 | 4:34 PM EDT

On his PBS show Monday night, Tavis Smiley welcomed liberal former Sen. Bill Bradley to discuss his political agenda, which began with repealing the Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United decisions on campaign financing. But what stood out most was Smiley ripping the Tea Party as more Republican than American.

Bradley suggested “even” the Tea Party are Americans first. “I’m just not sure that I’m persuaded,” Smiley said.

By Noel Sheppard | May 6, 2012 | 2:22 PM EDT

It's becoming crystal clear that President Obama stepped on his foot while taking a victory lap for the assassination of Osama bin Laden one year ago.

Joining the growing list of even liberal media members offended by this shameless act of self-promotion was PBS's Tavis Smiley who on ABC's This Week Sunday actually said, "I just hate seeing the president play into the hands of the right by running around bragging about having to off Osama bin Laden...I don't think it's presidential" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By Tim Graham | April 26, 2012 | 3:27 PM EDT

PBS talk-show host Tavis Smiley is doing a media tour with his pal, the Marxist professor Cornel West, and no one at PBS seems to care that this underlines PBS as a hard-left media brand. Noel Sheppard noted Smiley bashing Romney on Hannity. Smiley also bashed Romney last week on the taxpayer-subsidized Pacifica Radio show Democracy Now.

Pacifica host Amy Goodman replayed the CNN interview in which Romney told Soledad O'Brien he was not interested in the very rich or the very poor. Smiley found that showed callousness and arrogance and even a demonization of the poor:

By Noel Sheppard | April 26, 2012 | 9:27 AM EDT

Although the list is long and undistinguished, PBS's Tavis Smiley said possibly one of the dumbest things he's ever said on television Wednesday.

In a discussion about class warfare and the politics of envy on Fox News's Hannity show, Smiley actually said with a straight face, "No one who happens to be poor wants what Mr. Romney has" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By Tim Graham | April 23, 2012 | 4:27 PM EDT

On Thursday’s Tavis Smiley show on PBS, actress Annie Potts tried to claim that her ABC show “GCB” isn’t a vindictive anti-Christian Hollywood slam on red-state Texas. Potts claims it is designed by Christian creators to “disinfect” the hypocrisy out of Christianity.

“I’m getting a lot of letters and tweets and things from people who are Christian people who are happy to see the hypocrites called out,” Potts declared after mocking Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. “I think all true believers love to have hypocrisy routed out. I mean it’s –  what do they say – sunshine is the best disinfectant? Put it out there. Call it what it is. You know, satire is always helpful for society.”

By Noel Sheppard | March 15, 2012 | 9:38 AM EDT

While virtually all of the Obama-loving, Super PAC-bashing media have given the President a pass for his campaign finance hypocrisy, PBS's Tavis Smiley stepped off the bandwagon Sunday to speak the inconvenient truth.

During his Tavis and West radio show, Smiley said Obama's "one of the worst hypocrites in the country is he now on campaign finance reform" (video follows with transcript and commentary):