Tavis profiled in the New Yorker

This week's piece by Kelefa Sanneh starts out exploring TV and radio commentator Tavis Smiley's criticism of Barack Obama's candidacy and looks into Smiley's enterprises, which are based in Leimert Park, five miles from from his home in Hancock Park: "He described the black population of Hancock Park as 'me and two or three other Negroes.'" Excerpt:

The Smiley Group has about seventy employees and...has grown into a sprawling tribute to its founder’s independent streak. He publishes some of his books through SmileyBooks and arranges his own lecture tours—his standard fee is in the mid-five-figure range—through his High Quality Speakers Bureau, which also represents Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Jackie Joyner-Kersee, among others. At the meeting, he got updates about Tavis Smiley Presents, which organizes conferences, symposia, and speaking tours of black colleges, and about the nonprofit Tavis Smiley Foundation, which hosts a weeklong summer camp known as the Leadership Institute. And he briefed his lieutenants about his next big venture, “America I AM,” a travelling museum exhibition on black history, in partnership with Arts and Exhibitions International—“the King Tut people,” he said.

During a discussion of next year’s State of the Black Union symposium, the tenth, to be held in Los Angeles, Smiley confirmed that Prince, whom he befriended several years ago during a lunch meeting (he is an accomplished befriender), had agreed to play a concert. And he reacted with mock outrage when it was suggested that he celebrate the anniversary by throwing himself a party. “The Prince party is enough, y’all,” he said, laughing. “Come on!”

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In 1985, during his junior year, he lobbied hard for an internship with Tom Bradley, the first African-American mayor of Los Angeles. When he was rejected by one of Bradley’s assistants, he sent a handwritten letter, with apologies for any smudges caused by “the tears rolling down my face,” to Bradley himself, who finally invited him to Los Angeles. Some students might have been disillusioned by all the meetings and committees, but Smiley loved to think that he was helping to run the city....

By 1987, he was back in Los Angeles, where he worked as an aide to Bradley, then made an unsuccessful run for the city council. He next campaigned, also unsuccessfully, to become the president of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King’s old organization.

During this time, the story says, "Smiley noticed that there was a whole industry of people who got paid to talk and, even better, to opine. He conceived of a show called 'The Smiley Report,' and persuaded the owner of an AM radio station to let him unburden himself in sixty-second installments." His current radio gig for Public Radio International (and former one for NPR) get ignored small play in the piece.