Tavis Smiley

 




Gibbs had an exclusive interview with Tavis Smiley while he was in Oakland, CA., and he indicated that he was working on a number of possibilities for his career.Those possibilities have come to fruition: his daily National Public Radio program and starting this year he has a late night TV show on Public Broadcasting Stations.

After being fired from BET TV, Tavis Smiley Tonight, Mr. Smiley began plotting out his life in new ways. When Gibbs caught up with him in Oakland, he confided to us that he had a number of irons in the fire, as it were, but he would not reveal them at that time because of his negotiations with BET.

One of those irons was a column on BlackVoices.com, a magazine, his Tavis Smiley Foundation, a book deal, and another, just unveiled last week, was the new Tavis Smiley Show each Friday night on National Public Radio. This is a national program where he interviews guests on important issues.

On his premiere show, he interviewed, among others, Dr. Cornel West, the noted Harvard professor, of late heavily in the news because of his conflict with the new president of Harvard, President Summers, and his threat to leave Harvard and go to Princeton.

Smiley has a number of interesting guests lined up for interview in the coming months. It was his in-depth interviewing skills that made him a standout interviewer for BET TV.

Mr. Smiley has a wider audience now than BET ever afforded him. For NPR and PBS he brings a Black following that he acquired at BET. []

(Hear inyerview: Tavis Smiley.htm

 

Home