AETN’s ‘Arkansas Week’ celebrates 25 years
Tuesday, 22 January 2008“Arkansas Week,” the Arkansas Educational Television Network’s weekly news analysis program, will celebrate 25 years on air Friday, Jan. 25, at 8 p.m.
“We provide a great service, and it’s lasted because people found it valuable,” veteran journalist Steve Barnes, who’s hosted the program for 20 years, said. “We’ve kept personalities out of it and the news in. There’s no grandstanding and no shouting. We believe in the light instead of the heat. The news is more important than we are.”
The idea for “Arkansas Week” surfaced in 1983 when Tom Grimes, Ph.D., then an assistant professor in journalism at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, thought that the state could benefit from a public television news analysis program. He had completed his master’s thesis on public television and the roots of its public affairs programming, such as “Washington Week in Review.” That interest, coupled with his 10-year background in television production, reporting and directing and his work on a daily news analysis program at PBS member station KERA in Dallas, led him to AETN.
“That’s when I asked my colleagues at UALR who the boss was at AETN,” Grimes said. “It was Fred Schmutz, whom I got an appointment to see.
“I then presented him with the idea of a weekly news analysis program. To my shock, he agreed on the spot. I thought he wouldn’t want to do it for whatever reason, but sure enough, he did, and we scheduled the first program.”
One guest on that first episode was Ernest Dumas, a seasoned government and political reporter and now an independent journalist.
“My recollection is that aside from the host, the participants were Paul Greenberg, then editor of the editorial page at the Pine Bluff Commercial; John Ward, who was editor of the Log Cabin Democrat at Conway at the time I believe; myself; and I believe a fourth person,” Dumas said. “I don't recall what the issues were that day.
“The legislature would have been in session so I'm sure there were some issues involving the legislature and Gov. Clinton, who was taking office again after a hiatus of two years.”
From March 1983 to August 1983, “Arkansas Week” regularly saw guests from the Arkansas Democrat and Arkansas Gazette, other newspapers and the Arkansas Radio Network.
“The program, as I recall it, had quite a nice conversational feel to it,” Grimes said. “Fred insisted on taping the program because he wanted to review it before it went on the air.
“He was afraid that the reporters I brought on might say something that would insult a legislator or the governor. I don't recall that he ever censored anything that was said on the program. Indeed, I think that after a few programs, he no longer reviewed the tape but just let it go on as-is.”
In August, Grimes left the state to work on his doctorate at Indiana University. He now serves as a journalism professor at Texas State University and editor of Southwestern Mass Communication Journal. “I haven't seen recent versions of the program,” Grimes said. “But I hear they're quite a bit more sophisticated than what I produced, which was just a bunch of talking heads.”
“Arkansas Week” continued to air with various other hosts, including Clarence Cash, Thedford Collins and Scott Charton, until Barnes took over in 1988.
“I think it took on a more professional tone when Steve Barnes became moderator,” Dumas, who still serves as a guest, said. “He insisted on a more unrehearsed, spontaneous show.
“Also, I think that over time the discussions became more subjective. At the outset, the idea was that the panelists would be analytical but not judgmental. That is a hard demarcation to maintain, and a phony one, too, I think. But, people still strive to be non-partisan, and [I] think the show largely succeeds.” Barnes credits much of the success of “Arkansas Week” to public television.
“It also wouldn’t have lasted if it weren’t for public television,” he said. “‘Arkansas Week’ provides something you won’t find on commercial television. If not for public television, this program would not exist.”
But he also credits a dedicated audience.
“I am continually amazed and, frankly, all at once honored and humbled by how profoundly grateful people seem to be for our program,” Barnes said. “I and the other panelists can tell you that it’s impossible to go anywhere that people don’t say thank you for this program.
“Last week I was in a fast food restaurant in Forrest City, and a guy cooking burgers comes from around the griddle to say thank you for ‘Arkansas Week.’ In that same restaurant, a woman eating her lunch told me story for story what we talked about on the program. I’m touched by how sincere they are.” “Arkansas Week” airs Fridays at 8 p.m. Each week, a dedicated, distinguished group of Arkansas journalists and political scientists discuss issues in the news.
Barnes has been on the air in the Natural State since 1968 when he started as a copy boy on weekends at KTHV-TV Channel 11 in Little Rock. His adept hand at leading journalists and others in a discussion of current events complements his encyclopedic knowledge of the state, its players and its past. Barnes has not only become one of the most recognizable and respected people within Arkansas, but has connected with a national audience through work published in the New York Times, fed to the Reuters news service and shown on networks ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and PBS. He has been a recipient of the University of Arkansas’ journalist of the year award, as well as receiving first prize for television documentary awarded by the Society of Professional Journalists.
The Arkansas Educational Television Network (www.aetn.org>) provides lifelong learning opportunities, improves and enhances Arkansans’ lives and celebrates the unique culture of Arkansas through its programming and services. AETN’s digital and analog transmitters and numerous cable system connections give it statewide reach.
