My Nine Media Heroes (Who Are Yours?)

CHARLIE ROSE — Charlie Rose is the Larry King of public television–minus the Ms. U.S.A. pageant winners, reality TV stars and celebrity attorneys. If you have status, you’ve sat with Rose. And while this includes film producers, prime ministers and Wall Street dons, it’s the surprises I like. Such as Jay-Z, who’s guested several times and seems to save his best-face-of-rap-music prose for Mr. Rose. Not everybody at Rose’s big wooden table has me glued to my seat, but it’s must see TV when he spends an hour with folks that might soon discover a cure for AIDS, decipher our financial crisis or invent the next Google. Which is almost nightly. (@CharlieRoseShow)

BILL MAHER — Old schoolers remember Maher from his ABC show Politically Incorrect which lived up to its name until the network fired him over some post 9/11 comments. Maher is still bitter about the incident, but his HBO show allows cursing and he has an often A-list cast of guests, so take that, suits. Maher is brash and fearless when it comes to grabbing an issue by the throat even as his guests sometimes stare in shock. He’s not as funny as Stewart, but just as in your face in an attempt to save the world from idiocy. (@BillMaher)

TAVIS SMILEY — There are a ton of reasons I watch Tavis. For one, it’s rare for a black talk show host to get the face time Smiley does with government officials and other players in foreign and domestic policy. Smiley’s nightly PBS show has been as much about the day’s events as they have about percolating pop culture, which he approaches with the inquisitive depth of Charlie Rose. Even an interview with 50 Cent can be a candor-filled eye opener. Outside of Rose, I don’t know of a more eclectic cast of guests (Israel’s U.S. envoy to drummer Sheila E.). This diversity is part of the show’s strength. Another reason I love Smiley is his clear agenda for discussing more thorny issues race. His book The Covenant with Black America was a clarion call for black responsibility and self reliance and he unabashedly uses his PBS pulpit to carve out related conversations and sidebars wherever they fit in. But even without an overt line of discussion, his mere presence in the national media (recently appearing more frequently on Meet The Press) broadens the public dialogue. (@TavisSmiley)

Worth also mentioning: CNN/Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria; most anything on PBS or NPR; and PBS Frontline narrator Will Lyman because how can you doubt anything that voice declares?

Who are you thankful for?

Raymond Leon Roker is co-founder and publisher of URB, an online music and culture magazine (http://www.urb.com/). For almost 20 years, through web, video, print and events, URB has covered progressive urban music, DJ culture, indie rock and their orbiting lifestyles. You can also find Roker on the Huffington post writing about race, media and politics. Check for more at http://roker.tumblr.com/ or on Twitter @raymondroker.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.