Tavis is probably the best African American
journalist on the scene. He is extremely articulate,
yet he  keeps
his ear to the street, and manages to express
politics in terms that the "hood" can
understand. A man with his talents will surely be
missed if his voice is silenced as a television
commentator. Well as far as BET [Black Entertainment
Television] is concerned, he has been so silenced.
According to Bob Johnson, founder and the former
owner of BET, Tavis had essentially gotten too big
for his britches He secured an exclusive interview
with some woman. He never offered the interview to
his employer, BET, and sold it instead to ABC. It was
a business decision. Tavis knew that the interview
would never reach the large audience that the scoop
deserved, nestled between Comic View and another
Video DJ show.
I love BET. I generally spend a couple of hours a
night with it on my TV. I also enjoy listening to
Tavis as a commentator on the Tom Joyner Morning
Show, but I've only seen his BET show twice. I did
not like it. I did not find his interviews or his
guests controversial enough to be considered news.
Granted. I never really watched the show. If I could
be considered a gauge of Black Home viewing patterns,
Tavis' show should have been canceled last year. I
watch ESPN for sports. I watch BET for entertainment.
Black entertainment. A little bit of hip hop. Some
comedy. I enjoy an occasional news spot on BET, but I
don't go there looking to be informed. If they had an
occasional feed from CNN, perhaps I would support the
network for news at some time during the day. If
Tavis did an occasional interview on CNN or on 60
minutes, I would probably watch that.
I don't like the idea of writing, and faxing BET, in
an effort to protest the firing of Smiley, any more
than I like the idea that Johnson would punish Smiley
for taking his interview to a larger market. Tavis is
brilliant, and will very likely emerge from this
event as a much more important television figure, and
the black community needs to stop looking for boogie
men and conspiracies behind every action. Television
shows get cancelled all the time, and Tavis' show is
but one.
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