Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers:
Texarkana Gazette. June 18, 2019.
For several years now, those interested in bibles and bible study guides, religious books and other faith-based merchandise could go to the LifeWay Christian Store in the Texarkana Pavilion shopping center.
But those days are coming to an end.
The parent company, LifeWay Christian Resources, announced a couple of months ago that it will close all 170 of its retail stores to focus completely on internet sales.
“While we had hoped to keep some stores open, current market projections show this is no longer a viable option. The decision to close our local stores is a difficult one,” said acting CEO Brad Waggoner in a prepared statement.
Right now at the Texarkana location there is a big yellow banner announcing the store is closing. So while no one knows when the end will come for this world, it’s already here for Texarkana’s LifeWay.
It’s likely many will be upset by the news. And no doubt some will rail against the online technology that is having a negative effect on the brick-and-mortar world.
But the fact is, it’s not the technology. It’s those of us who use it.
We are buying online instead of from local merchants. We are embracing the convenience and, in some cases, lower costs of online shopping.
And that means in the years to come more and more retailers will be making the move to online-only. Or just going out of business completely.
Don’t want to see local stores close? Then spend your money locally. That’s the key. The next time you see a Texarkana store shut down, ask yourself “when was the last time I shopped there?”
Our local economy is in our own hands.
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Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. June 18, 2019.
Sooner or later, every county with fast population growth will have to ask itself a question: How do we handle the growing demand for jail space?
It’s not something anyone really wants to face. We’d love to believe all the newcomers are upstanding citizens who volunteer in the schools, pay their taxes, go to church every Sunday and never drive more than 5 mph over the speed limit.
With growth, expansions of law enforcement, first responders, the courts and jails have traditionally been viewed as necessities. People in Washington County are pondering expansion, which has been a major concern of Sheriff Tim Helder for years. People in Benton County are beginning to ask that question, as Sheriff Shawn Holloway’s staff sees the trend for the not-so-distant future.
“We’re turning away people - nonviolent misdemeanors,” said Benton County jail Capt. Jeremy Guyll. “We are often pushing the maximum number of inmates.”
In Washington County, Helder has told the Quorum Court his staff is already dumping about 200 misdemeanor inmates back onto the streets as quickly as they can and they still end up with inmates sleeping on the floors of the jail.
Back in Benton County, discussions have even turned to the possibility of “mobile pods,” which are constructed by placing semitrailers side by side and fusing them into one facility for housing inmates. Sure, that’s not where you’d want to put a capital murder suspect, but, the theory goes, some of those charged with misdemeanors could do their time there.
That’s no permanent solution, but it could be a cheaper short-term solution until Benton County officials figure out a plan for more permanent jail space or some other solution to jail crowding.
In Washington County, some residents in recent months have opposed expansion of the jail in south Fayetteville, urging county leaders instead to find alternatives within the criminal justice system. Those alternatives all focus on approaches in which people who violate the law or those awaiting trial for violating the law would be more likely to avoid jail.
Those advocates are not wrong to acknowledge that the circumstances leading to crimes are not always simple, so the response to criminality shouldn’t be oversimplified, either. Rather, they suggest, the criminal justice system needs to take into account the factors that contribute to people committing crimes and find ways to address those factors rather than just penning people up in a concrete warehouse.
Once upon a time, such suggestions - lowering or elimination of bonds, treatment of substance abuse problems - would have been followed by cries of going “soft on crime.”
Maybe some of this new justice steers close to being soft on crime, but not all of it. Last week, local and state officials dedicated the Northwest Arkansas Regional Crisis Stabilization Unit, where officers and medical professionals trained to spot evidence of mental illness can take people in need. It keeps them out of jail when and if treatment provides a far more likely solution to the trouble they causing for themselves and others. “’’We can bring them here instead of criminalizing their illness,” Helder said last week.
Helder has been a strong advocate for the Crisis Stabilization Unit, and he’s spent years juggling community expectations that the commission of a crime deserves punishment vs. the space he has at the jail. What he’s testified to is how those expectations cannot be maintained without serious change, and in his evaluation, more space for inmates is part of the equation.
Faced with the challenge, members of the Washington County Quorum Court had the answer: Let’s do a study. The Jail/Law Enforcement/Courts Committee voted last week to put off indefinitely any plans for expanding the jail and instead pursue alternatives to incarceration as a means to reduce crowding at the jail. A day later, the Finance Committee recommended earmarking $100,000 to study the county’s criminal justice system.
The county has an expert advising them, and his name is Tim Helder. We think the justices of the peace would do well to listen to him. He’s as level-headed a sheriff as they come, and he doesn’t push for something just for political kicks or because he’s some Joe Arpaio type who wants to throw everyone under the jail. His performance as sheriff has shown he’s dependable and moderate. He’s earned the respect to be listened to.
Expanding the jail is a tough decision, so the Quorum Court will spend $100,000 at least to avoid making that call right now. We hope the Quorum Court’s approach, expected to take a year of study, is wildly successful in finding new ways to approach criminal justice, particularly ones that don’t forego deserved punishment or don’t contribute to higher crime rates.
But our bet is none of them will eliminate the need for more jail space to serve a growing Washington County population.
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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. June 18, 2019.
The news industry keeps changing as it tries to meet readers/viewers where they are. The dedication to delivering facts and important stories hasn’t changed (except maybe on cable news), but the delivery method continues to diversify. And that’s OK. Technology changes, business models shift and you’ve got the circle of life. The latest frontier … is streaming.
You can’t say we aren’t changing here at Arkansas’ Newspaper. We’ve got podcasts now, both in Little Rock and Fayetteville. And we’re gradually moving the statewide edition over to iPads and other digital delivery to keep giving readers the same news and opinions they’ve relied on for two centuries.
Live video has always seemed like more of a television thing, but more newspapers are starting to dabble. And thanks to social media sites, it’s easier than ever to dabble in live video. While reporters have been using Facebook Live for a couple years now with varying degrees of success, The Washington Post is trying a different website, one typically not associated with news.
The video streaming website is called Twitch, as in that thing your right eye does when you hear a cover of an Eagles song on the radio. When it first launched, Twitch was mainly used for people playing video games to show others how they were … playing video games. No accounting for taste or youth.
So how does a site used mainly for video game streaming translate to news? Well, Twitch is evolving. It has millions of eyeballs around the world, and people are starting to figure out what they can offer those eyeballs (and make some advertising dollars why they’re at it). The Washington Post is one newspaper that’s taken the step, offering live streams from reporters to break down complex topics like the Mueller Report or a new piece of legislation being debated in Congress.
By going to where these new eyeballs are, the newspaper grows its audience. Let’s say Jon logs onto Twitch to see the latest gamers streaming themselves playing Tetris. (Yes, people actually still play it.) He watches a few games before seeing that The Washington Post is live, explaining the continuing privatization of space travel and relationships between NASA and corporations like SpaceX.
That’s actually a pretty interesting topic he’s been curious about, so Jon clicks on The Washington Post’s video. And he watches for the next hour while reporters bring in employees of NASA and SpaceX and interview them on the future of space economics. Impressed, Jon makes it a point to “favorite” the channel so he can watch future videos from the paper. He may even visit the paper’s website, find more amazing stories, and order a subscription. Stranger things have happened.
Newspapers see Twitch as a viable bridge to a younger audience where they can easily set up their own video streams with ads. Especially if they think it has a shot at producing more subscribers.
It’s all part of evolution in the news industry. Who knows what else they’ll come up with next?
Bill Buckley once said conservatives stand astride the world yelling Stop! But somehow it never does. All this new technology might make some of us apprehensive at first. Then again, we were nervous the first time we got behind the steering wheel of a car, too.
Onward!
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