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.
.@kuarpublicradio covered how @ArkansasPBS stepped up to help the state expand its remote learning program to meet new distance learning demands. Learn how they brought all their resources to bear, drawing from the success of other #pubmedia stations. https://t.co/fjJ9Y5xTyc
— CPB (@CPBmedia) May 11, 2020
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.
Director of Public Affairs at Arkansas PBS, 35-year broadcasting veteran, photographer, interested in radio, TV and railroad history, author and host of the book and podcast series Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas.
