By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Let’s say you’re 72 years old and worth millions of dollars, and you own one of Arkansas’ most important and recognizable companies. However, your entire industry is in a state of upheaval based on economic, societal and technological factors you can’t control.

Do you:

1. Sell your assets, retire, and live out your days in leisure and luxury?
2. Embark on a bold, revolutionary plan that could save your company and light the way for others like it – or it could cost you millions while consuming a chunk of your remaining years?

If you are Walter Hussman, owner of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, you choose (B). And because of your sheer audacity and public-spiritedness, you are the Arkansan of the year. Continue reading Arkansan of the year: Walter Hussman →

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

It’s always dangerous to quote one of our four most recent presidents including the current one, because so many readers despise one or two of them – often exactly two, depending on the reader’s political persuasion. Most people seem OK with former President Jimmy Carter, age 95.

But sometimes one of those presidents says something so insightful that it’s worth the risk.

Former President Bill Clinton spoke at the 200th anniversary celebration of the Arkansas Gazette’s founding Nov. 21, and this is what he had to say about Russia’s interference in American elections, as quoted by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“Their real goal is to break the conviction that we can know and we can act on what we know, and we can predict the consequences of acting on what we know,” the 42nd president said.

Clinton painted a dark picture of where this is leading, saying, “Technology and the movement toward authoritarianism all over the world are driving us to the point where ordinary people may find it hard to tell fact from fiction or truth from a bald-faced lie. If that happens, it will be impossible to sustain meaningful democratic government.”

The remedy? “We need to know things, and we need to be able to have discussions, even arguments, with our neighbors based on the same set of facts,” he said. Continue reading Clinton on target with newspapers, media →

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

How can you be an informed citizen without going insane in an insane world? It starts with reading the newspaper.

The week of Oct. 6-12 was National Newspaper Week, sponsored by Newspaper Association Managers.

It’s a good way to remind ourselves that the best way to keep informed is through a news provider where working journalists interview sources, sit through government meetings from beginning to end, and present facts and differing viewpoints because they trust us to make up our own minds.

That’s the newspaper. Here’s how you can use this invaluable tool.

First, you should subscribe – to your local newspaper and probably also to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more state, national and world events. Your local paper focuses on your community, as it should.

Subscribing costs money. Meanwhile, there are plenty of sources of free information, including talk radio, cable news, opinionated websites, Facebook and Twitter.

But you know the old saying that you get what you pay for? Those free sources often are completely biased. They often don’t do the legwork that ferrets out the truth. They fill time by ranting and shouting alongside politico-celebrities from the left or the right. Many make money by fueling our outrage. That outrage is addictive, and like all addictions, harmful to ourselves and our society. And Facebook and Twitter just dump everything in our laps at once. There’s some good there, and a lot of garbage. Continue reading Want real news? You get what you pay for →