Live From Crenshaw

When Tavis Smiley’s Los Angeles-based PBS talk show debuted in January, public television had never broadcast a national talk show from these shores. Of course, his NPR radio program (still running on KPCC-FM) was also a West Coast public broadcasting first. During his stint as nightly talk-show host at Black Entertainment Television, Smiley bagged the first post-Monica Lewinsky interview with President Clinton, grilled Fidel Castro, chatted up Pope John Paul II and produced a piece on onetime Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson for rival network ABC, a move that got him fired from BET. In his studio and office complex near Leimert Park in the Crenshaw district, the man who has described himself as “the chocolate-covered Charlie Rose” is answering questions for a change.

You could live on the Westside, near NPR’s snazzy new studio, but you’re here in the Crenshaw district.

What’s wrong with the inner city is that too many folks who become successful move out. I wanted my own office building, but I figured I ought to take an eyesore and turn it into something beautiful, so folks here can see that we can re-beautify our community. We’re planning a building where we’ll do our television show--now we do it at KCET--with a restaurant on top and an open-air roof garden. Magic Johnson and [NFL wide receiver] Keyshawn Johnson are building another big project. The Crenshaw community is going through a renaissance. I’m glad to be here and I’m not going nowhere.

Before you were a broadcaster, you ran for the L.A. City Council and lost. Was politics your first ambition?

My first goal was to be a first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds. When I was 13, I met former Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh and I realized the kind of power politicians had to help people live better lives.

Do your broadcasts offer a West Coast orientation?

I call it a West Coast vitality, not necessarily a West Coast philosophy. We have conservatives and liberals out here. I mean, we kicked out Gray Davis and put in Arnold Schwarzenegger. We blamed immigrants with Proposition 187. We blame African Americans with Proposition 209 [which bars affirmative action]. In many ways, our policies are retrograde, so I wouldn’t be bragging these days about how progressive we are. I do believe that there are folks on this side of the Mississippi who have things to say about the issues that America is grappling with. There has been no place in L.A. if you have something to say. There are a lot of places to go if you have something to sell.

Al Franken and Al Gore have spoken of starting a liberal network. Would you want in?

My politics are left of center, but I would not want to be a part of it, because I am one of those African Americans who is more conservative on moral issues, more liberal on social questions. In America, we get so wed to ideology that we look past good ideas.

You are often seen as a portal for the black community.

There is an old adage: “When and where I enter, the whole race enters with me.” I don’t think that it’s fair, but it’s a consequence of the world that we live in. So I don’t know about being a role model, but I certainly am, like it or not, a race model. And that simply means, since I’m the chosen one to represent on public TV and NPR, I’ve got to do just that. Representing for me means coming to work knowing my stuff, come “correct,” as we say. Even if I were not conscious of it, I’d get reminded coming down Crenshaw every morning.

You grew up poor in Indiana as one of 11 children. To what do you owe your success?

The Three Fs--”faith, family and friends.” My mother is a minister, an evangelist, so I have an abiding faith that has been instilled in me in terms of my spirituality, but also in myself. My family is very close, and so family is very important to me. And I’ve been fortunate to have good friends and mentors. What’s your biggest on-air blunder?

My biggest radio blunder: I received a letter sent allegedly from CompUSA, the computer dealer, that was racist in tone. It came on CompUSA stationery, [allegedly] signed by the senior VP of marketing or whatever, and I read the letter on the air, only to find out that it was a hoax. It had not come from CompUSA. I had to go on the air and apologize. Now I don’t read anything on the air until I’ve verified the source.

Any regrets about taking the Sara Jane Olson interview to ABC?

If I could do it all over, I’d do the same thing. My contract did not give BET first right of refusal on anything I did. Nor had they ever asked for it. My deal was in place when Viacom bought BET. When I did this piece, independently produced, that aired on ABC instead of Viacom-owned CBS--and my piece killed CBS in the ratings that night--the Viacom people were like, “Wait. Doesn’t this black guy work for us?”

Would you ever go back to doing a show aimed mainly at a black audience?

Never say never, but not unless I owned it.