Different heads are talking these days on “Arkansas Week,” the venerable public affairs program on the Arkansas Educational Television Network.
The half-hour show, hosted by Arkansas news veteran Steve Barnes, has long highlighted a panel of journalists and political scientists discussing the issues of the day. Those folks include Arkansas Business’ own Lance Turner, no stranger to a TV camera. But grizzled news writers and broadcasters are making way for a new breed of panelists — including politicians, economists and lawyers — under a single-topic approach introduced by producer LaShuan Vaughn early last month.
What’s the thinking? “The program has now been opened up to feature a variety of guests from other fields of expertise” examining “one primary topic on each episode,” Vaughn wrote in an email to the “Arkansas Week Family.”
The show will continue to have news panels, she said, but only once or twice a month.
A Dec. 1 episode on the flood of sexual harassment cases making headlines featured attorneys Carolyn Witherspoon and Philip Kaplan, along with human resources pro Glenda Caton. The Dec. 8 segment had Arkansas House members Vivian Flowers, D-Pine Bluff; David Meeks, R-Conway; and Douglas House, R-North Little Rock, discussing the upcoming fiscal session. Other programs included a look at economic activity heading into the Christmas season with state economists John Shelnutt and Michael Pakko on a panel with consulting economist Charles Venus. Barnes finished the year with one-on-one interviews with Arkansas’ two senators, John Boozman and Tom Cotton.
Among all those shows, the only traditional panel of journalists came on Dec. 15, when the guests were independent journalists Ernest Dumas and Steve Brawner along with Heather Yates, a political science professor at the University of Central Arkansas.
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