Tavis Smiley

The MRC@25: The Worst Media Bias of
September 24th, 2012 7:59 AM
NewsBusters is showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala on Thursday evening.
Click here for posts recounting the worst of 1988 through 2009. Today, the worst bias of 2010: Journalists attack the Tea Party as Nazi “goons;”…

Kyra Sedgwick: 'People in NY and LA Have Narrower View' of Race, Abort
September 1st, 2012 9:14 AM
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):

Roseanne Barr Loses Green Party Nomination, Along With Her Mind
July 18th, 2012 9:11 PM
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…

James Earl Jones, Voice of Darth Vader, Loves MSNBC And Knows the Tea
July 10th, 2012 11:24 PM
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…

Joan Walsh on GOP: 'White, Older Base That Doesn’t Quite Understand
July 4th, 2012 10:17 AM
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):

Morgan Freeman: There Is a ‘Great Attempt’ to ‘Disenfranchise
June 21st, 2012 10:27 AM
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…

Morgan Freeman: 'We're In a Lot of Trouble If We Don't Reelect Obama
June 20th, 2012 9:04 AM
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):

PBS's Tavis Smiley Thinks the Tea Party Is Republican Before It Is Ame
May 23rd, 2012 4:34 PM
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…

PBS's Tavis Smiley: I Hate Seeing Obama 'Bragging About Having to Off
May 6th, 2012 2:22 PM
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…

PBS Host Tavis Smiley Goes on Tax-Funded Radio to Slam Romney's 'Callo
April 26th, 2012 3:27 PM
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…

Tavis Smiley: 'No One Who Happens to be Poor Wants What Romney Has
April 26th, 2012 9:27 AM
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):

On PBS, 'GCB' Actress Claims Her Show Aims to 'Disinfect' Christianity
April 23rd, 2012 4:27 PM
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…

Tavis Smiley: Obama 'One of the Worst Hypocrites in the Country' on Ca
March 15th, 2012 9:38 AM
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…

Gloomy Joe Scarborough Says Right Now, GOP's As Low as the Nixon-Resig
March 8th, 2012 10:29 PM
Joe Scarborough doesn't just take his Obama-landslide talk to NBC. He also spewed some of it on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS on Monday night. "This past month has been – and I was saying it this morning on the [MSNBC] show – this has been the worst month for the Republican Party since August of 1974 when Richard Nixon resigned, and I mean that."
To which Smiley replied: "Wow, wow, wow, wow."…