I joined the panel for AETN’s Arkansas Week, with the top issue being proposed changes Gov. Asa Hutchinson is requesting from the federal government for the state’s Arkansas Works Medicaid expansion program. About 331,000 Arkansans are covered right now, but that would be reduced by about 60,000 as he wants to lower the income cap for eligibility. We also discuss reaction in Arkansas to the plan presented in the U.S. House of Representatives to repeal and replace President Obama’s signature healthcare law, and have the latest in the Arkansas Legislature concerning guns, unused school buildings and expanding wine sales in grocery stores.
For 15 years this has been my home on the web. It started as an online portfolio documenting my career in radio, with audio of some of the bigger news stories I’ve covered and photos from each station or network. Eventually I started adding unrelated items that interested me, including railroads, photography and literature.
But the original platform hadn’t changed much since my former college roommate Tim Edens helped me put this online in 2002. I added some media players and made other minor modifications, but the website had become woefully outdated by modern standards. Admittedly, I had also let it become dormant over the last year. So I’ve decided to start from scratch and rebuild it. Maybe I can compare the process to an IHOP restaurant near my house in Little Rock, Arkansas, at the corner of University Avenue and Markham Street. I was surprised to see it bulldozed recently and now it’s being rebuilt on a much larger scale with part of it to feature a second floor. At a certain point, rather than making minor repairs, I guess they decided it was best to just teared it down and rebuild.
That’s what I’m doing here, though I am reposting older material. I also hope to greatly expand the website by adding a lot of additional interviews, photos and more on a wide range of topics I have reported on or just find interesting. The website is also now available in a form that can work on different platforms, including mobile devices. If you get a 404: Page Not Found, audio files that don’t play, or you find other errors, please bear with me! I hope to have everything up and running by the end of March. Thanks for stopping by!
I joined the panel of AETN’s Arkansas Week, Friday, Jan. 27, 2017, on the third week of this year’s Arkansas General Assembly. Key issues were Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s tax cut plan getting passage in both chambers, while a proposal for an earned income tax credit from Democratic Rep. Warwick Sabin was rejected. Bills concerning abortion, higher education funding and medical marijuana were also discussed, as was the possible impact to Arkansas of trade policies from Pres. Donald Trump.
This is the online home of broadcasting news veteran Michael Hibblen. I've worked for newspapers, radio and TV stations around the country, with this website telling the story of my career, including audio, photos and videos. Also featured are various interests I've researched, primarily about radio and railroads. Today I'm Director of Public Affairs at Arkansas PBS, overseeing production of Arkansas Week and the streaming of events on the Arkansas Citizens Access Network. The posts on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Arkansas PBS or my former employers.
My Book
Released by Arcadia Publishing in 2017, Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas delves into the history of the railroad which once had a huge footprint in Arkansas, as well as other states in the middle of the U.S. The book features historic photos and tells the story of the Rock Island, which was shut down in March 1980. READ MORE
For 13 years, from May 2009 to December 2022, I worked for NPR station KUAR-FM 89.1 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. That included 10 years as News Director while continuing to anchor and report. You can read and hear reports from that time on Little Rock Public Radio's website.
