Tavis Talks

Host Says He Learned from Those Who Dissed Him

Talk-show host Tavis Smiley calls his Web site “Tavis Talks,” and that’s exactly what the activist has been doing as he promotes his autobiography, “What I Know for Sure.” In bookstore appearances, he reportedly has mentioned that he has not been invited onto Oprah Winfrey’s or Larry King’s talk shows but still took his previous book, “A Covenant With Black America,” to No. 1 on the New York Times nonfiction paperback best-seller list.

And in an appearance on C-SPAN on Sunday, he talked about National Public Radio, Black Entertainment Television and its founder Bob Johnson, and his first BET guest, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, sometimes quoting from the book in the best tradition of those who use their memoirs to settle scores.

Smiley was mild in his criticism of NPR, which he lambasted when he quit “The Tavis Smiley Show” in December 2004, telling Time magazine then it was “ironic” that President Bush’s administration was more diverse than public radio.

Discussing “News & Notes,” NPR’s successor show, Smiley said, “There are still concerns about whether or not NPR gets it, where inclusion and diversity are concerned. “And I’m not here to cast aspersion on them,” said Smiley, who now does a weekly show on an NPR competitor, Public Radio International, as well as a late-night television show for PBS. “I’m here to say that all of our institutions—government and private sector—American institutions need to reflect more the breadth and depth of diversity that is America. And NPR has a way to go in that regard.”

Smiley recalled that the first night he hosted the live “BET Talks,” Simmons was invited on the program to talk about slain rap idol Tupac Shakur, who had died over the weekend.

“And I asked a question about how great an artist Tupac would have become. How much more did this brother have to offer to contribute to the world of hip-hop music, had he lived and had he continued to mature?

“Because clearly, you look at the guy’s life,” Smiley said. “There were points in his life, not unlike the rest of us, where Tupac was conflicted and confused. I used those two words, conflicted and confused.

“And for some reason, Russell Simmons just lost it, just snapped on the air, and jumped all over me for asking what I thought was a legitimate and critical, loving question about what kind of artist this guy could become.

“Russell snapped on live TV, my very first night on the air—live—and called me a ‘house nigger.’ He said, ‘You ain’t nothin’ but a house nigger. I turned down all these other interviews today. I came on BET to talk to you, because I thought you were different, you were better. You ain’t nothin’ but a house nigger.’

“It took me two or three years to convince the hip-hop community on BET that watched my show, that I wasn’t some guy who didn’t care about, didn’t love rap music, or some guy who hated Tupac Shakur. It was quite the opposite,” Smiley said.

Smiley said he turned down Simmons’ requests to come back on the show until a few years later, when Simmons agreed to apologize, but then did not. “He got on the air and acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about,” Smiley said.

Simmons’ publicist, Gretchen Wagner, did not return a telephone message and e-mail seeking comment. Smiley said the lesson from that experience was, “You have to engage in a conversation that is honest, that is truthful, that is authentic, even if the person being questioned, the guest, doesn’t like the question.”

And then there was the tension between Smiley and Johnson, who eventually fired him.

In 1999, Smiley told a Newsweek correspondent, “It gets frustrating to be asked by young black people how I can work for a company with no social consciousness. I get that wherever I go, and it’s something I can’t answer.”

By Smiley’s account, Johnson exploded, and, on a speakerphone with his vice presidents listening, told Smiley, “How the ‘f’ do you come off criticizing me in public? What gives you the audacity to say something negative about this network, when this network has been paying you big money for years now? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Smiley replied, “In the four years I’ve been working for BET, you never called me once, never had a one-minute conversation with me. Never sent me a single note or card. Never said, ‘great show’ after I interviewed Clinton or Castro.

“You never invited me to lunch, never introduced me to your family. Now you call me up and cuss me out in front of a bunch of VPs. What kind of jerk are you? I watched Ted Turner on ‘Larry King.’ They have a relationship, a friendship.

“Here I am, the highest paid talent you have, and you don’t give me the courtesy of a single word in four years. And now you feel you have the right to excoriate me. How dare you disrespect me this way! You can take this program and ram it up your black ass!”

Johnson’s public relations firm did not return a call seeking comment, but as Brett Pulley reported in his 2004 book on Johnson, “The Billion Dollar BET”, Johnson told viewers when he fired Smiley in 2001, “The relationship was fraught with tension. And I didn’t want this relationship to go any further.”

Smiley said the scholar Cornel West, whom he said he considers a big brother, said to him after the 1999 incident, “Tavis, you must, even when you’re justified, be dignified. Even when you’re justified, you must also be dignified.”

“It’s a lesson that I’ve learned the hard way,” Smiley told interviewer Brian Lamb.

Spokeswomen for Winfrey and King confirmed that Smiley had not appeared on their programs, but Bridget Leininger, a CNN spokeswoman, said “he and Larry are pals. They see each other at events all the time.”

• C-SPAN video and transcript
• Felicia R. Lee, New York Times: Media Man on a Mission: The Whirl of Tavis Smiley

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Dallas Morning News Names Worker in U.S. Illegally

“Dungan’s Mobile Home Park, a rusting collection of 1960s-era trailers, exists a world away from Washington and the emotional debate on illegal immigration,” Mike Jackson wrote Sunday in the Dallas Morning News.

“The laborers who rent trailer space by the week at Dungan’s live quietly below the political din—only a few blocks from the trendy courthouse square in downtown McKinney.

“Juan Franco, 46, left his wife and two teenage children in Guanajuato, Mexico, last year to find work in Texas. He and the other men at Dungan’s work for construction contractors, landscapers, restaurants and manufacturers.

“Some of them said they came here legally. Mr. Franco admitted he crossed the Rio Grande illegally.

“‘I have no choice,’ he said. ‘There’s no work over there.'”

In 1998, the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer caused an uproar with a similar story about a man named Julio Granados.

“On March 8, readers of the North Carolina daily opened their Sunday papers to find ‘Heart without a home,’ two full pages on Julio’s life,” Sharyn Vane wrote in the American Journalism Review, in a recap headlined, “Too Much Information.”

“And two weeks later, they learned of the postscript: Granados, 21, and five other illegal aliens at the El Mandado market had been arrested by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Agents in Charlotte had seen the N&O’s article— which mentioned Granados’ undocumented status and included details about where he lived and worked—and decided to arrest him.”

After heated sessions in the Raleigh newsroom and calls and letters from community members, N&O Editor Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal, who is now at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, acknowledged there were things editors might have done differently. Publisher Fred Crisp donated $5,000 to a fund set up by a Durham church to help the six who were arrested.

In Dallas, Editor Bob Mong did not respond to a request for comment Monday. But in her Latina Lista blog, Marisa Trevino asked in a headline, “Did Newspaper Immigration Story Violate the Trust of Those Interviewed?” She wrote, “It’s one thing to tell someone’s story; it’s another to set them up for easy retaliation.”

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Paul de la Garza, Hard-Driving Reporter, Dies at 44

Paul de la Garza, a hard-driving St. Petersburg Times reporter whose passion for the big story was matched by love of family, died Sunday after an apparent heart attack, Stephen Nohlgren wrote Sunday in the St. Petersburg Times. He was 44.

“. . . Mr. de la Garza first worked at the Times from 1992 through 1994, where he covered Tampa police news, wrote a column, and helped edit the Tampa section.

“Then he worked for the Chicago Tribune for six years, both in Mexico City and in Chicago, where he was a reporter and assignments editor.

“He returned to the Times in 2000, in part, because he and his wife wanted a more stable environment for two orphans they had adopted in Mexico City—Monica, now 12, and Carlos, 11.

“Mike Konrad, now Hernando Times editor, was managing editor of the Southern Illinoisan, in Carbondale, when Mr. de la Garza was posted there for the AP.

“‘This was a guy who could work sources like nobody I’ve ever seen in my life,’ Konrad recalled. ‘Within weeks of getting there, he was getting stories our reporters were missing, just because he had met so many people. And there was nobody in the world who would not talk to Paul.'”

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Korean-Americans Meet with S.F. Chronicle Editor

Members of the Korean-American community in San Francisco met with Editor Phil Bronstein Thursday to protest the four-part series “Diary of a Sex Slave,” by Meredith May and Deanne Fitzmaurice, which chronicled the life and experiences of a South Korean woman who was lured and forced into prostitution in San Francisco by sex traffickers.

The group had published a set of demands that included a written general apology, and Asian Week magazine published an “open letter” from members rebutting the series. The letter was reprinted by the Chronicle on its editorial and opinion page.

Bronstein issued a statement after the meeting saying, “The two most significant accomplishments that came out of the meeting:

“1. a specific framework and detail about how we can tap much more effectively into the Korean American community for stories that provide context and depth about that community and about South Korea; and, 2. the chance to meet a very impressive group of people who represent superb contacts and persuasive leadership in that community.”

Rene Astudillo, executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association, told Journal-isms Monday, “AAJA’s mission is to ensure fair and accurate media coverage of Asian American & Pacific Islander communities and issues. AAJA makes it a point to bring to the media’s attention any coverage that we feel is inaccurate, biased or offensive. But we have also encouraged communities adversely affected by any media coverage to exercise their power to directly demand from media companies a more balanced coverage. This case with the Korean American community proves how community mobilization can bring positive results.”

• Emil Guillermo, Asian Week: Sex Not Necessary to Be Slave to Immigration

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NAJA’s Karen Lincoln Michel Elected Unity President

Karen Lincoln Michel, state bureau chief of the Green Bay Press-Gazette in Wisconsin, has been elected president of Unity: Journalists of Color Inc. for the 2007-2009 term, Unity announced on Monday.

The 17-member board of directors unanimously elected Lincoln Michel, a past president of the Native American Journalists Association, on Saturday during the board’s fall meeting at the alliance’s headquarters in McLean, Va., succeeding Mae Cheng of Newsday.

Lincoln Michel will preside over the July 23-27, 2008, Unity convention in Chicago, where more than 10,000 people are expected to attend.

“The UNITY board also selected as vice president Aki Soga, business editor at The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press. Soga succeeds NABJ President Bryan Monroe, who recently became vice president and editorial director for Ebony & Jet magazines. John Yearwood, world editor of the Miami Herald and current NABJ treasurer, will become UNITY’s new treasurer. Yearwood succeeds Javier Aldape, editor and vice president of Diario Hoy in Chicago. And Rafael Olmeda, assistant city editor at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and recently elected NAHJ president, will serve as secretary,” the announcement said. The acronymns stand for the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

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Short Takes

• Bryan Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, addressed the United Nations Youth Leadership Summit Sunday in the General Assembly hall. Journalism students have been assigned to write, report and produce stories about the three-day event.
• The long-awaited “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation” by Hank Klibanoff, now managing editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Gene Roberts, former managing editor of the New York Times, won a rave in the Journal-Constitution on Sunday. E. Culpepper Clark, dean of the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, wrote that the black press got to the story first, “but as the movement heated up—beginning in Little Rock in 1957—and as radio and television began to dominate the scene, heroic black reporters found their skin color to be a hindrance and the overwhelming power of visual media to be a displacing phenomenon.”
• “The sentiment may be combative, but NBC’s cost-cutting decision to regionalize Telemundo’s news in six major metropolitan areas has a lot of folks riled up,” Michael Manekin wrote Saturday for California’s Alameda Newspaper Group. “Latino and media activists across the county are raising their voices in protest in the Bay Area.”
• CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts said there’s “some anger, but a good kind of anger” at CBS News, discussing the third-place ratings of the “CBS Evening News With Katie Couric,” Peter Johnson wrote Monday in USA Today. “Every discussion starts and stops with, ‘How can we be No. 1?’ We’re like a franchise football team that went out and got a superstar and brought in some big hitters and we expected to be 8-and-0 at this point, and we’re not.”
• New York market veteran Roz Abrams “becomes the anchor without a home” at WCBS-TV after the latest reshuffling at the station, Richard Huff reported Saturday in the New York Daily News. “Word is Abrams will remain with Ch. 2—for now—though it’s expected she’ll eventually leave the CBS-owned station. She’s believed to have a long-term deal with Ch. 2, which could complicate a breakup.”
• “Univision’s New York station, WXTV-TV, is closing in on a ratings milestone: Its 6 p.m. newscast, ‘Noticias Univision 41,’ out-drew three English-language newscasts in key age groups at 6 p.m. for the month of October, finishing second only to WABC-TV’s 6 o’clock news,” Michele Greppi wrote Friday in TV Week.
• Network producer Jason Samuels has joined the ABC News Digital Unit as a senior producer. Samuels spent the last 11 years at “Dateline NBC.” At NBC, Samuels said he was was the only black male producer on the staff of any of the major NBC News programs based in New York, “Dateline,” “Today” and “NBC Nightly News.” “I hope to have a direct hand in developing the next generation of news content,” he said.
• The director of the Eye newspaper of Swaziland condemned the Friday beating of Swazi television journalist Njanji Chauke by police in the Democratic Republic of the Congo “in the strongest possible terms.” Chauke was hit several times over the head when police without warning charged a crowd of Congolese Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba’s supporters during the final day of campaigning in the presidential elections, the Johannesburg-based African News Dimension reported Saturday.