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The Tavis Smiley Show is a high-energy exchange of views, information, and insight hosted by Tavis Smiley. The two-hour weekly show offers a unique blend of news and newsmakers in expanded conversations, along with feature reports and regular commentators Cornel West, Connie Rice, J.C. Watts, Omar Wasow, Dr. Ian Smith, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Michael Eric Dyson, Antonio Gonzalez and George Johnson. Each weekend Tavis engages commentators and guests in substantive and provocative discussions on a wide range of topics including: politics, health, finance, sports, technology and pop culture. An insightful exploration of the issues that matter from fresh, diverse points of view is the show’s hallmark.

The Tavis Smiley is produced by Smiley Radio Properties, Inc. in partnership with Public Radio International (PRI). The show is available to PRI's 727 affiliate stations nationwide for broadcast and simulcast streaming.

About Tavis Smiley

About Public Radio International



PRI is public radio's leading source for innovative programming and audio content. The Minneapolis-based network provides over 400 hours of programming each week, content that is broadcast and streamed online by its 727 public radio station affiliates nationwide, who reach 31 million listeners each week. PRI is the managing partner of the satellite radio company American Public Radio, LLC, established with Chicago Public Radio® and WGBH Radio Boston. PRI's cultural programming is available via XM Public Radio. Its news and information programming is available via Sirius Satellite Radio.

PRI is known for driving innovation in public radio through partnerships with stations, independent producers, and other organizations, and for working collaboratively to pool resources and share risk, cultivate new talent, and bring diverse voices and perspectives to the public airwaves. Its best known offerings include Marketplace®, produced by American Public Media™ in association with the University of Southern California; This American Life, produced by Chicago Public Radio®; PRI's The World, a co-production of BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Radio Boston; Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know?®, produced by Wisconsin Public Radio; PRI's From the Top®, produced by From the Top in association with WGBH Radio Boston and New England Conservatory of Music; and PRI's Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, produced by PRI and WNYC, New York Public Radio.

About Public Radio International

The Tavis Smiley Show Staff Bios



Sheryl Flowers
Sheryl Flowers is Executive Producer of The Tavis Smiley Show from Public Radio International (PRI), and over a span of nearly 20 years she has worked in almost every facet of the media.

Sheryl began her career in radio in 1985 as an on-air announcer for the campus station while attending Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama where she studied Mass Communications. After transferring to Clark Atlanta University to complete her Journalism B.A., she began writing for several local publications including The Atlanta Tribune, and Upscale Magazine while also doing freelance production and voice-over work for Black Entertainment Television.

In 1989, she moved back to California’s Bay Area where she grew up, and began writing for the California Voice and Sun Reporter. Her story on the high rates of black infant mortality in Oakland led to a media consultant position for the non-profit East Bay Perinatal Council. She was eventually hired as a Communications specialist to engage in media outreach and public policy development on a multitude of issues affecting low-income women, children and families.

While at the Council, Sheryl helped develop an award winning Community Health Outreach Training Program for the State of California designed to assist high-risk, underserved pregnant women receive prenatal care and other services. She eventually returned to radio, and over several years served as a producer for Pacifica radio’s investigative public affairs program “Flashpoints”, producer of the daily, national show Living Room, and the weekly program “About Health” before becoming co-host of “The Morning Show” on KPFA radio in Berkeley. Sheryl has been honored for her work by the Bay Area Black Journalists Association and in 1993 completed a Public Affairs Fellowship at WGBH in Boston.

From 1997- 1999 Sheryl was the voice of Mavis Beacon, the animated instructor of the world’s best-selling typing CD-Rom “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing”.

In 1999 Sheryl moved to Washington DC to help market and produce the award winning NPR program Justice Talking. She returned to California in 2001 to become Senior Supervising Producer of The Tavis Smiley Show from NPR.

When she’s not on deadline, Sheryl enjoys skiing, running and salsa dancing.


Morris W. O’Kelly
Morris W. O’Kelly is Producer/Editor for The Tavis Smiley Show. He is son of two music educators and competent on 10 musical instruments. After getting his degree in marketing/music at Georgetown University he immediately went to work for Capitol Records and began an 11 year career in the recorded music industry; including such companies as NARAS (the Grammys), Warner Bros., Virgin and Interscope Records.

Along the way, he began branching out into entertainment journalism; scribing for newspapers, magazines and other periodicals. After a number of critically acclaimed Op/Ed pieces in the Los Angeles Times, he decided to pursue entertainment writing in a fulltime capacity.

Since then, he has been honored by Ebony Magazine, Writer’s Digest and his fraternity Omega Psi Phi, Inc. for his work both on and off the page. In addition, he was selected as a 2003 Guy Hanks/Marvin Miller (Bill Cosby) Fellow for his screenwriting material.

Lately, his writing journey has led him to pen material for radio impresarios Jim Rome and Ryan Seacrest. Also, he presently writes a number of entertainment columns for both print and online media nationally.

When O’Kelly is not stringing sinewy, didactic words and phrases together, he practices the martial art of Hapkido. The remainder of his free time he spends mentoring youth in the greater Los Angeles area.


Jon Tkach
Jon Tkach is a Producer and Editor for The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI. He began his career in public radio with an internship at KQED in San Francisco while he was trying to figure out what to do with a History degree from UC Berkeley

He went on to cover local news as a reporter for a radio station in North Carolina while getting his masters degree in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was later named a Charles Kuralt Fellow at international broadcaster Voice of America, serving as an editor, producer and reporter in Washington, DC. While at VOA, he went out on several foreign assignments, spending considerable time in Mexico City and Islamabad, Pakistan.

Jon later worked as a freelance reporter and media analyst before moving back home to Southern California and sliding briefly into a stint in real estate. Happy to put that time behind him, he found his way back to radio while working on a passion project aimed at documenting his family s complicated history. It is a work in progress.

He spends his other free time trying to tire out his overly energetic puppy. Jon would also like to take this time to proudly admit that he owns his own pair of bowling shoes.
















The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI appreciates the support of its national underwriters. The program is produced by Smiley Radio Properties, Inc. and distributed by PRI.








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