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Reporting on the COVID-19 Pandemic

by | May 18, 2020 | About Me

Today the death toll from COVID-19 in Arkansas reached 100. It has been about nine weeks since the novel coronavirus arrived in the state, with the first positive case reported on March 11. The virus would spread rapidly, with the state Department of Health now reporting more than 4,800 positive cases. While Arkansas hasn’t been impacted as bad as some parts of the country, it has still been grim reporting on the ever-increasing numbers.

Life would change drastically soon after the first case in the state, with schools, restaurants and other businesses ordered to close, though Gov. Asa Hutchinson drew some controversy for never issuing a shelter-in-place order as governors of most other states had done. For a while I reported daily on the outbreak, starting with a special report on KUAR shortly after the announcement of the first case. In the weeks that followed, I anchored the station’s live broadcasts of Hutchinson’s daily press briefings.

I was a panelist on the Arkansas PBS program Arkansas Week on March 20 to discuss steps that had been taken at that point and impacts of the closings. I was in the TV studio for the program, which can be watched here, but soon Arkansas Week, like so many other programs, would shift to hosts and others taking part remotely.

At my home office in Little Rock on April 7. There are definite pluses and minuses to working from home.

KUAR also had to scale back how many people were coming into the station, so I, like most of the staff, began working from home. Only our local Morning Edition and All Things Considered anchors are in the station regularly. The afternoon anchor has also started handling the broadcasts of the governor’s daily briefings.

20 years ago, I also would broadcast from home while working as a Miami-based reporter for CBS News Radio, so it wasn’t that strange to again be writing and voicing reports from home. What I have missed, however, is the comradery of the newsroom, as well as getting out to cover stories in-person.

When the governor and health officials started encouraging people to avoid being out in public, my news staff and I adjusted to monitoring press conferences and meetings online or recording phone interviews using an app. What’s lacking are details that a reporter can only pick up while being where news is happening. There’s also not the same ability to interact with people and ask questions to be sure I’m completely understanding something I’m covering.

As news director of KUAR, it’s very different to oversee my staff and plan coverage remotely, using shared documents to determine assignments and relying more heavily on emails and texts. I’m very proud of the job we’ve done covering the many aspects of the outbreak, which I feel has reached the level of being a public service.

An enterprise story I poured a lot of effort into was a two-part report on the Arkansas Department of Education’s Alternative Methods of Instruction program (AMI), which was originally intended to be a short-term solution for students during situations like snow days. But with schools closed, the program was expanded in a unique way that involved Arkansas PBS broadcasting five hours of programming a day with the state’s five most recently-named teachers of the year hosting some of the segments.

AUDIO: Hear both reports on the AMI program, broadcast on May 4 and May 5, 2020.

I interviewed five people involved in creating the AMI program and got outside opinions on its effectiveness from two people in higher education. I was pleased that several education groups posted and discussed the story on social media. Also, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting shared a link on its Twitter feed.

Because it’s still not considered safe to bring large crowds together, traditional high school and college graduation ceremonies had to be cancelled, postponed or moved online. One extreme disappointment for me was that I had been invited to give a graduation speech last week to the Little Rock School District’s Accelerated Learning Center. It was created in 1998 as an alternative school for students considered at risk of dropping out.

It’s located at the Metropolitan Career and Technical Center, which 32 years ago was where I took a radio broadcasting class while a junior in high school. It was taught by Bob Gay, a veteran broadcaster who instilled exactly how radio stations operated and very effectively prepared me for a career in broadcasting.

An invitation to be the ACC graduation speaker on May 12, 2019, which unfortunately was cancelled because of the pandemic.

While later college courses refined my skills, especially about journalism, I still feel like I got more real-world knowledge from that class. It enabled me to get my first radio job six months into the class and begin getting some experience.

I was proud to have been asked to speak at the graduation, but the May 12 event was cancelled. Maybe I’ll get the chance to deliver a speech next year.

Part of what was important to me is a past connection between the school and where I work today. When the school district was planning the vocational high school, the decision was made to include an FM station to train students in broadcasting. According to Wikipedia, KLRE-FM 90.5 hit the air in February 1973. For the first several years it was a mostly student-run station, on the air from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

In 1977, the Friends of KLRE was formed to provide additional support and help make it a more serious operation, which would broadcast from early mornings until late at night, including classical music and fine arts programming.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock had wanted to create a public radio station to air NPR programming, but lost a fight with the community activist group ACORN for the FM frequency 88.3. So UALR approached the school district about partnering in the operations of KLRE. In 1983, the station was allowed to increase its power to the current 40,000 watts and soon added NPR programming.

The university eventually succeeded in getting its own station, with KUAR-FM 89.1 hitting the air on Sept. 16, 1986. Both simulcasted for a while until KUAR became primarily a news and jazz station and KLRE was all classical. By the time I started my high school radio class at Metropolitan in August 1988, the stations were operated out of Stabler Hall at UALR. The former KLRE studios were used for my class.

I would have enjoyed returning to the place where public broadcasting in Little Rock began and speaking with the students. I had made some notes about points I wanted get across about pursing their interests and goals in life, but never drafted a speech as it was looking unlikely the graduation ceremony would be held. But maybe this pandemic won’t have society quite as locked down at this time next year and I’ll get an invitation to speak again.

Beat Generation poet Michael McClure Dies at 87

by | May 7, 2020 | Arts

Poet, novelist and playwright Michael McClure, who was part of the Beat literary movement when it began in the mid-1950s in San Francisco, died Monday, May 4. He was 87. McClure, along with Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and many others, helped usher in the counter-culture movement that still resonates today.

With news of Michael McClure’s death, I dug out a few items from the day I interviewed him in Miami in 1999.

I recorded a brief interview with McClure on Nov. 21, 1999 while he was in Florida to take part in a lecture at the Miami Book Fair titled “The Beats Now: Talks with Icons and Editors of the Beat Generation.” My questions were a bit dorky, but I was trying to get him to discuss a few key points about what the movement was truly about.

“I would say that it was about going for the deepest level of the imagination possible,” McClure said. “We discovered it was inevitable to speak out against the cold, gray, fascist American way politics of the ‘50s and also to begin speaking out in favor of the environment. That’s not quite the way it’s pictured with people sitting around with spaghetti in their beard playing bongo drums and wearing splotchy berets.”

At that time, he was performing with keyboardist Ray Manzarek, formerly of the Doors. A book of Zen poems had been released that year, while Penguin Books had reissued two books from decades earlier that had been out of print.

Asked if he was surprised at the resurgence of interest in the Beats, McClure told me no.

“We’ve had a good three revivals already and I don’t know if there’s going to be more, maybe I won’t be around for the next one. Each one of these rivals gets more serious and they begin being taught in classes and things like that.”

AUDIO: My interview with Michael McClure, recorded at the Miami Book Fair on Nov. 21, 1999.

I was grateful to McClure for giving me a few minutes of his time. I dug out my minidiscs from that day in 1999 to digitize the audio of the interview.

I also spoke with writer Diane di Prima, who also took part in the lecture. I had recently read her book Memoirs of a Beatnik, which was full of lots of sex and drugs. I asked her about the book, what it was like being a woman in the Beat movement, and her relationship with Kerouac.

AUDIO: Hear my interview with Diane di Prima, recorded at the Miami Book Fair on Nov. 21, 1999.

Relocation Completed of Rock Island Depot in Arkansas, Now Fundraising Begins to Repair Roof

by | Mar 1, 2020 | Rock Island Railroad

The Perry depot on Feb. 22, 2020 after being moved to a new location, which is still along the tracks.

Nearly three years after the idea was proposed to move a Rock Island Railroad depot in Perry, Arkansas to keep it from being torn down, a significant milestone has been reached in the project. Last month the 101-year-old passenger and freight station, which was along the railroad’s Sunbelt Line between Memphis and Tucumcari, New Mexico, was moved to a new location. A foundation was then constructed underneath the building. The next priority is to raise money to replace the roof.

I’ve written an update on the project and how people can help by making donations. This really was a long shot idea that has come together thanks to a lot of supporters who realize the significance of this old building. READ MORE.

Arkansas Week: Presidential Primary Politics, Medical Marijuana Arrives in Little Rock

by | Feb 16, 2020 | Arkansas Week

With just over two weeks before Arkansas takes part in Super Tuesday on March 3, presidential politics, including race, dominated most of the conversation on this weekend’s episode of Arkansas Week. We also discussed Little Rock getting its first medical marijuana dispensary, nine months after they began opening elsewhere in the state. I joined state Rep. Fred Allen (D-Little Rock) and Hendrix College political science professor Jay Barth to talk about the issues with host Steve Barnes.

This show was aired just as AETN (Arkansas Educational Television Network) announced it will be adopting a new name, Arkansas PBS, which Barnes discusses at the end of the program. The rebranding reflects the growth of digital platforms to watch programming beyond the six broadcast television signals that make up the network. The new name officially goes into effect on Feb. 28.

Paul English, Longtime Drummer and Enforcer for Willie Nelson, Dies at 87

by | Feb 12, 2020 | Music

A highlight of every concert I’ve seen by Willie Nelson has been hearing him sing “Me and Paul,” written about his experiences with longtime drummer Paul English. English officially joined “the family,” which Nelson called his band, in 1966, though they had met a decade earlier. So I was sad to see that English died on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2020 after suffering from pneumonia. He was 87.

Paul English brushes the snare drum during a performance of “Me and Paul” with Willie Nelson on Oct. 5, 2012 in Jonesboro, Arkansas during the annual Johnny Cash Heritage Festival. Photos: Michael Hibblen/ KUAR News.

Only once did I cover a Willie Nelson concert as a reporter. That was on Oct. 5, 2012 during the annual Johnny Cash Heritage Festival, which raises money to restore and maintain Cash’s boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas. Cash and Nelson had long been friends, performed together in the supergroup the Highwaymen, and released a live album together in 1998, the incredible VH1 Storytellers, in which they alternated stories and songs. So it seemed a natural having Nelson play to help support the project for his late friend’s home, which had its roots in a New Deal program during the Great Depression.

Willie Nelson at the Oct. 5, 2012 concert in Jonesboro, Ark.

I was in the pit at the front of the stage shooting photos at the 2012 show and was happy, as I heard Nelson introduce “Me and Paul,” to see a spotlight shine on the drummer, with me taking the photo above of English in signature hat, black outfit and cape. I interviewed Willie Nelson once in 2005, with audio and photos of that, as well as photos from the 2012 concert at this link.

English had a colorful history, not only playing rhythm for Nelson, but also serving as a protector of the singer. The Oxford American (which is based in Arkansas) detailed that history in a 2015 article titled “Watching Willie’s Back,” which delved into the many roles English held over the years. That included being road manager of the show and, in the early days, being the strong-armed collector of payments from club owners for the band. Armed with a pistol in his boot, he was prepared to protect anyone that threatened Nelson or the band. RIP Paul English.