Alan Leveritt
Arkansas Times Publisher
In 1974, Alan Leveritt and a few friends launched the Arkansas Times, an alternative monthly magazine that provided political and cultural news to the state. Leveritt had gotten his start in the media business during his college days in the early 1970s at Little Rock University, now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR). He founded and operated an independent student newspaper, Essence. On its editorial page, Essence supported Leveritt’s personal politics, which embraced the ideas of libertarianism and the Young Americans for Freedom party. Using a $200 donation from a local bookstore, Leveritt and his associates published the first edition of the Union Station Times on September 5, 1974, so named because it was headquartered near Union Station in Little Rock. In July 1975, the name of the monthly publication was changed to Arkansas Times.
Listen to Kerry's first interview with Alan at https://www.flagandbanner.com/up-in-your-business-radio-show/alan-leveritt-5-5-2017.asp
Listen to Learn:
- About the stories Alan has lived through and reported
- How investigating police corruption led to the burning of the AR Times building
- How the publishing industry has changed with the inception of the internet, and more...
Podcast Links
TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE 425
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:08] GM: Welcome to Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Through storytelling, conversational interviews, and Kerry's natural curiosity, this weekly radio show and podcast offers listeners an insider's view into the commonalities of entrepreneurs, athletes, medical professionals, politicians, and other successful people all sharing their stories of success and the ups and downs of risk-taking. Connect with Kerry through her candid, funny, informative, and always-encouraging weekly blog. And now it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:40] KM: My guest today is the longtime Little Rock publisher, Mr. Alan Leveritt, who, in 1974 with $200 and a few friends, launched the Arkansas Times Magazine, an alternative monthly magazine about political and cultural news in Arkansas. In the '90s following a 13-year war between the capital city's two newspapers, the Liberal Arkansas Gazette and Conservative Arkansas Democrat, which resulted in the closing of the Gazette in 1991 and the renaming of the Arkansas Democrat to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Alan decided it was time to take his Arkansas Times monthly newspaper to a weekly publication.
Alan said, and I quote, "We wanted to keep the Gazette's voice alive in the community." The Times, as it is simply called, has written a lot in its five decades of journalism. To celebrate their 50-year milestone, Alan and his team published an anniversary issue highlighting stories from each decade. And, wow, has our country and the way we do business changed?
But one thing that has stayed true is the Time's original mission pinned 50 years ago in Alan's Maiden Voyage Column, Alan wrote, "The Times will have two main thrusts. News with a focus on investigative reporting. And the Arts."
Today we're going to get folklore, stories that Alan has lived through and reported on from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s. We will learn how the staff's investigative reporting of police corruption in Little Rock led to the burning of their building in the 80s. We will talk about the Tony Alamo cult leader's fall from grace. And how the publishing industry has changed since the inception of the internet. And finally, when Alan is not trying to change the world or educate us, he is a second – I'm sorry. A third-generation farmer.
It is with great pleasure I welcome to the table my friend, the super ambitious, well-read, community-minded, hardworking man, and farmer, Mr. Alan Leveritt. Woo. You didn't know you were so impressive, did you?
[0:02:55] AL: I didn't know I was that important. Yes, ma'am. Hello, Kerry.
[0:02:58] KM: Hey, baby. You were my 34th guest. This show is 418.
[0:03:07] AL: Wow.
[0:03:08] KM: I know. Right?
[0:03:08] GM: Episodes or guests?
[0:03:09] KM: Episodes.
[0:03:10] GM: Okay. Cool. Yeah.
[0:03:11] KM: Because we replay some guests.
[0:03:12] GM: Yes. Right.
[0:03:12] KM: I don't know exactly how many guests. Probably half of those.
[0:03:15] GM: At least. Yeah.
[0:03:17] KM: But that you and I were together.
[0:03:19] AL: Mm-hmm. At KABF.
[0:03:20] KM: At KABF. And it was live.
[0:03:24] AL: Yeah.
[0:03:24] KM: Today, we pre-record. But we did it live back then. And, today, I want to tell our listeners, I went back and listened to our interview. It's really good.
[0:03:32] AL: Well, good.
[0:03:32] KM: The recording quality is not as good as it is today. Because we have better technicians. KABF is a wonderful station. But it's community. It's community.
[0:03:42] GM: And it was live.
[0:03:43] KM: And they're the only people that would let me on without – because I had no track record of any kind. I just called up John Cain and said, "Hey, can I come on the radio for an hour every day?" And he was like, "Okay. Whatever." Love that man.
But anyway, we have so much to talk about and so little time. For the budding entrepreneurs tuning in, tell our listeners about your $200 startup and how you paid your employees with creative stock options. I think this is encouraging.
[0:04:10] AL: Well, we were young. And I don't recommend doing it this way. But that was the only way we could do it. And Jim Bell at Publisher's Book Shop, who was a friend of mine, I went to him and I said, "Jim, I got this great magazine idea I want to do. We're selling stock." And he wrote me a check for $200. And I thought, "Well, this is going to be really easy." And that was the last check I got. And so, that was how we determined what our starting capital was going to be.
Years later, I was talking to Jim and he told me that when he wrote that check and he filled out his check stub, he wrote donation instead of investment because he said he never expected to see his money again.
[0:04:48] KM: You pay him back.
[0:04:49] AL: Oh, yeah. He got a great return on his investment.
[0:04:52] KM: He got a stock option.
[0:04:53] AL: Yeah. He owned stock.
[0:04:54] KM: Did you buy everybody out that you gave stock to?
[0:04:57] AL: No. Well, there's still some of the –
[0:05:01] KM: Olivia Farrell, was she in there?
[0:05:02] AL: Olivia was not there until probably three years later. And so, she bought one of the original stockholders. She bought their stock. But no. I mean, there's a couple of people that got close to a quarter-million dollars for their stock.
[0:05:20] KM: What? Where was that? I should have been putting money in that.
[0:05:24] AL: We worked for nothing.
[0:05:27] KM: Yeah. Well, you're passionate.
[0:05:28] AL: Well, we were – yeah. I mean, we were passionate. But we worked for three and a half years. The only thing you had to have to work at the Times in 1974, '75, '76 was another means of support.
[0:05:43] KM: Oh, I got you. That's how you start a small business.
[0:05:46] AL: Yeah. And so, I drove a Yellow Cab. David washed dishes at an Iranian restaurant. And you just did what you needed to do.
[0:05:56] KM: You drove a Yellow Cab.
[0:05:58] AL: It was like getting an MBA in Little Rock. I mean, because you drive at night. Some cities, cabs are ridden by rich people. Some cities, cabs are ridden by poor people. In Little Rock, it's poor people. People that couldn't afford a car. And it was at night. And so, most of your time was spent in the East end or the South part of the city. And I saw another side of life that I'd never – I grew up in the suburbs. I didn't know anything.
[0:06:30] KM: Is that what changed you from your conservative views to liberal views?
[0:06:34] AL: That's what started.
[0:06:36] KM: Because you were born conservative.
[0:06:37] AL: I dropped out my senior year at UALR to start The Times. But driving a cab was fascinating.
[0:06:46] KM: You didn't graduate from college?
[0:06:47] AL: No.
[0:06:48] KM: Do you know how many people we interviewed that did not graduate from college? Entrepreneurs? It's pretty weird actually. It's almost like a prerequisite. If you're going to be an entrepreneur, get out of college. Spend that money on your startup.
[0:06:58] GM: Well, it was just like you. It provides an alternate route for people who couldn't take the sort of typical route.
[0:07:05] KM: Alan, do you remember what you said in our interview last time?
[0:07:09] AL: I have slips. That's a no.
[0:07:10] KM: Yeah. Well, it was what? Seven years ago?
[0:07:13] AL: Yeah.
[0:07:14] KM: You said that you – I said something about could people go into the business and do a startup like you did now? And you said, "Absolutely. It's even easier now because you have the internet. You can start writing. And you could do all this stuff." And you said, "If they don't go to college, don't buy a house and don't have children, they can invest in their career."
[0:07:34] AL: Well, you got to be able to live poor. You got to live frugally. And you can't – think about student debt. I've been kind of following this thing with Biden trying to erase student debt. Back then, I could go to UALR for $500 a semester and I had a $250 scholarship. And even then, it was hard to get that money. But now these kids, they graduate, they got thousands and thousands of dollars in debt. Well, I couldn't have started the Times. I'd had to get a real job back then. But I didn't have any debt. So I was okay.
[0:08:09] KM: Well, and the government gave you really low interest on the money you did borrow back then. And then I think it was George W. who changed it. Tied it to the stock market. And now the interest on that money is a lot more than it used to be when you were young.
[0:08:24] AL: Yeah. I'm not even sure they had student loans in 1970.
[0:08:29] KM: Oh. They'd had it when my husband was going – he graduated in the'80s. Early 80s. They had some kind of loan that he could get with really low interest rate which was easy to pay back or easier.
All right. The other interesting thing I think about starting up a business is, right off the bat, you're on the verge of bankruptcy. And so, you started a paper because you like to write. But you quickly said –
[0:08:55] AL: Couldn't find anybody to sell ads. Had this one guy. Because were you straight commission. Yeah. Right. This one guy came in and he was going to sell ads for us. And he was awful. But anyway, he had this slick back hair. Just full of Brylcreem. And –
[0:09:12] KM: Nobody knows what Brylcreem is, honey.
[0:09:14] AL: He would leave one time. He was in the office. And we had these wooden walls in this old little railroad house down on 2nd Street. And he leaned back and put his head against the wall. Then he popped back up and he left a big grease spot on the wall. And I thought, "This is who we are. This is it."
But anyway. Yeah, I made a deal. Bill Terry was a very talented mercurial journalist who had gotten fired from the Democrat. And I went to Bill. And I'd known Bill. I'd worked at the Democrat right out of high school. And I went to Bill and I said, "Bill, listen. You be the editor. And I'm going see if I can sell an ad." And I went down to the Shack Barbecue down on 3rd and Victory. And I went in there and I sold a two-thirds-page ad. And I thought, "Dad gam it. That's something." And I came back up to Bill and I said, "Bill, you're the editor and I'm now the ad manager." And so, that was the –
[0:10:11] KM: You're still selling, aren't you?
[0:10:11] AL: Oh, yeah. I still sell every day.
[0:10:13] KM: You come see me.
[0:10:14] AL: Yeah.
[0:10:15] KM: You come to see me. I'm like, "Alan, what are you doing here? You own the paper." You're like, "Well, I'm the best salesman we got. We got to make work on the business not in the business." That's a great tip. Is the catfish still your mascot? And why the catfish? Of all the ugly fishes.
[0:10:28] AL: Because it is indigenous. It is absolutely the most vivid, indigenous symbol of Arkansas.
[0:10:35] KM: Scrappy.
[0:10:35] AL: Scrappy. Bottom feeder. No. Yeah. But we feed on bottom feeders. I guess that's the definition of investigating reporting. But anyway –
[0:10:48] KM: Your heart is in investigating reporting. That is your love of reporting.
[0:10:54] AL: That is certainly – but there's more to it than that though. Because Arkansas is such a rich culture. It's so interesting. Just the indigenous culture that we have. Think about music. You got blues music. You got uh Hill music up in the Ozarks and everything. And just to be able to take 50 years and just go through all that. From the food, the music, the accents, the language. I mean, why would you – it's the best job in the world. Why would anyone else want – why would you want to do anything else? It could occupy a lifetime. And it has for me. And when we were graduating from college or leaving college, it was like, "God, we – we just thought Arkansas was the most fascinating place we'd ever seen."
[0:11:45] KM: I'm surprised. Because most people leave college and go, "I want to get out of Arkansas."
[0:11:48] AL: Well, I know. And I didn't have that – I mean, I work so hard to get back to Arkansas that I wasn't about to leave it. Yeah.
[0:11:57] KM: I'm not sure the citizens – the publishing business has changed a lot since 1974 when you started. And most of most papers all over the country have closed. And I'm not sure the citizens of Arkansas realize how lucky we were to have two newspapers still owned and operated today by people that live in the city. The Democrat Gazette is owned by the Hussman’s. And the Arkansas Times is owned by you. Spectrum is closed. Free Press is closed the. The Gazette-Gazette has closed. I'm not sure people realize how lucky we are to not have somebody in New York writing our articles.
[0:12:29] AL: Right. No. The reason that we have as good a daily newspaper as we have is because it's locally owned. And I believe that a person should not own a newspaper if they don't live in that city. You should not own it. If you don't live there, go find something else to do. Start a newspaper in your own city.
[0:12:49] KM: What happened to people – you used to not be able to have multiple newspapers, right? Because they didn't want to start the propaganda that we have today. One voice could be too loud.
[0:12:49] AL: No.
[0:13:01] KM: No?
[0:13:01] AL: You couldn't own multiple outlets in the same market. You couldn't own two TV stations in the newspaper in the same market.
[0:13:09] KM: You can now.
[0:13:11] AL: Yeah. Actually, I think you can. A lot of that's gone away. But back then, we had chain newspapers all over the country. And it's so long as – for a long time, the newspaper business was fat and happy. They'd make 30% profit margins. I never did. But it was done. And so, everybody wanted to own a chain of newspapers. And there was money there to finance them. Now there's not. And we got these terrible – we got Gannett, which is just a blight on journalism. And if the Democrat-Gazette – if the Democrat had lost the newspaper war, it'd be a sorry ass newspaper today because Gannett would –
[0:13:49] KM: Does Gannett own all the newspapers in America or something?
[0:13:52] AL: No. They love it. Actually, Gannett is now – really, Gannett is GateHouse. GateHouse bought Gannett but changed their name to Gannett because GateHouse is an abomination. It's a terrible, terrible journalistic organization. They just gut the newsrooms to make profit. It's an awful organization. Gannett had a better reputation than GateHouse did. When GateHouse bought Gannett, they took the Gannett –
[0:14:18] KM: It's a rag. Is that what they call it? Rag?
[0:14:20] AL: Yeah. Something like that.
[0:14:21] KM: Okay. This a great place to take a break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Arkansas Times founder, Mr. Alan Leveritt. We're fixing to get into some good investigative reporting stories. Still to come, the 70s and ' 80s. You won't believe how much our culture has changed. And, yet, it is still the same. The '90s and 2000s, we saw the dot-com boom. And Bill Clinton was elected president. We'll be right back.
[BREAK]
[0:14:44] GM: You're listening to Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. In 1975, with only $400, Kerry founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. Since then, the business has grown and changed along with Kerry's experience and leadership knowledge. In 1995, she embraced the internet and rebranded her company as simply flagandbanner.com. In 2004, she became an early blogger. Since then, she has founded the nonprofit Friends of Dreamland Ballroom. Began publishing her magazine, Brave. And in 2016, branched out into this very radio show, YouTube channel, and podcast.
In 2020, Kerry McCoy enterprises acquired ourcornermarket.com, an online company specializing in American-made plaques, signage, and memorials. In 2021, Flag and Banner expanded into a satellite office in Miami, Florida where first-generation immigrants keep the art of sewing alive and flags made in America.
Telling American-made stories, selling American-made flags, the flagandbanner.com. Back to you, Kerry.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:15:46] KM: We're speaking today with Arkansas Times founder, Mr. Alan Leveritt, who is celebrating the paper's 50 years in business. In the 70s, you were ahead of your time. Your wife – I think she was your wife at the time, Mara Leveritt, wrote an article called Up and Coming Homegrown Grassers. and your other writer, Brian, wrote, "Marijuana is not the stigma in Little Rock that it was." This is the 70s. "The bigger it gets, the more loose it's going to get." He went on to say, "He didn't want marijuana to fall under the control of existing agencies like those handling alcohol and tobacco because," and I quote, "there's too much graft and corruption there." I had to look up what graft meant. Means illegal means.
[0:16:33] GM: Right. Yeah.
[0:16:34] KM: I didn't know that.
[0:16:36] AL: I think the medical marijuana is a real step in the right direction in terms of making it legal. It's really unfortunate what's getting ready to happen.
[0:16:47] KM: What's that?
[0:16:48] AL: Well, there's a new ballot initiative that got passed or that got the required number of signatures. But there was just a ridiculous technicality about who signed the paper one day. And it never been a problem on any other ballot initiatives for the last decades. But the attorney general, and the governor, and the Secretary of State didn't want a loosening of the marijuana medical rules. They came up with a novel new interpretation. It was appealed to the Supreme Court, Arkansas Supreme Court, and two justices recused themselves. And the governor has appointed two absolute enemies of legalized or medical marijuana. And so, that's going to go to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
[0:17:43] KM: And then what happened? You mean they're going to get rid of it completely?
[0:17:45] AL: No. No. No. But this –
[0:17:47] KM: But not open it to everybody.
[0:17:49] AL: Well, it was. It was going to be a constitutional amendment that basically – instead of saying that your doctor has to say that you need this, a pharmacist, a nurse, other medical professional could do it. Instead of having to pay $250 every year to get your card, it was good for three years. It just made it a whole lot more. You can grow I think 7 or 14 plants at home, which right now you cannot grow it at home. Yu have to go through these dispensaries. I think it was an improvement. But the governor doesn't want this to happen. And so, it just means that it's not going to happen. And –
[0:18:33] KM: Yeah. Because she owns all the – she has all the power.
[0:18:35] AL: She does have the power. Yeah.
[0:18:36] KM: I've never seen a governor with so much power.
[0:18:38] AL: Well, it's not just her. But it's –
[0:18:40] KM: Yeah. She's got a really good strong team around her that she could –
[0:18:44] AL: They're all carpet baggers.
[0:18:46] KM: None of them are from here. Is that what you mean?
[0:18:48] AL: A very few of them. I mean, her public affairs people, the Secretary of Education. Now, the economic development, yes. And that was a really, really good hire. But no. So many of these people, I think they figured that she's on her way to Washington at some point. They attached themselves. They come from Florida, wherever they are. New Mexico. And they attach themselves to her. And then that's their direct shot to Washington.
[0:19:14] KM: Carpet baggers. I hadn't heard that term in a long time. Well, I tell you – and everybody knows this. I blog about. It I have melanoma cancer and the medicine makes me nauseous. And I am so glad it's legal.
[0:19:26] AL: Yeah.
[0:19:27] KM: I mean, I am so glad it's legal.
[0:19:29] AL: Well, I have a friend and she has to go in for dialysis every day. And so, we were getting started –
[0:19:34] KM: All of us old hippies do good.
[0:19:37] AL: Yeah. Well, I said, "Does this really do you – does medical marijuana –" she has a medical marijuana card. And I said, "Does this really help you?" And she says, "Well, it's not going to cure me. But I've been able to get off of two opioid prescriptions using marijuana." Well, okay. That's an improvement.
[0:19:54] KM: Yeah. And it doesn't have any – it doesn't hurt your stomach. It doesn't hurt your liver. It doesn't hurt your – it just goes right through where – anyway, enough of that. It's fun to compare and contrast now and then because a lot of things have gotten – are so much different when I read – I mean, but a lot of things are the same. The political date from the 70s is still now the subject of separation of state and religion. I mean, it's still going on from 50 years ago.
[0:20:21] AL: It's gotten worse. It's gotten worse. I mean, now we're funding religious schools with taxpayer money. I mean, that would never have happened in the 1970s. I mean, this whole idea of Christian nationalism, that America is a Christian State. Arkansas is a Christian State. And, therefore, there's no separation between the church and the state.
[0:20:43] KM: Isn't that why America was founded is on a separation of church and state?
[0:20:46] AL: Well, I think a lot of the founders came out of the 30 years wars which was –
[0:20:52] KM: Religious.
[0:20:52] AL: Yeah. Religious. Terrible. Terrible. All through Europe. And they were determined not to make that mistake again. And so, when they started – some of the states, early states started putting religious identification to their state, the new United States decided that, no, they were not going to repeat the errors of Europe and the conflicts there. And they were going to separate the course of power of government and religion.
[0:21:27] KM: Well, right now, Israel and Gaza is a religious war. Is it not?
[0:21:33] AL: Yes.
[0:21:35] KM: Isn't so many of the wars that we fight are over religion?
[0:21:37] AL: It is. But they're fighting over land.
[0:21:40] KM: Oh, okay.
[0:21:41] AL: I think the Palestinians – I mean, the settlers coming in and taking over more and more of Palestinian land. And then during the various wars early in the century, in the 19th, 20th century, that land was never returned back to the farmers that originally had it. And that creates a really, really deep and longstanding scar that people don't forget.
[0:22:07] KM: Yeah. White flight. That was in your 70s section of your magazine of your 50-year anniversary issue. But, really, white flight was the 60s. Not the 70s. Wasn't it?
[0:22:18] AL: Well, the downtown was depopulating. In 1974, our first cover was the white flight of the downtown churches. All the big churches downtown were moving out West, out on Rodney Parham and different places. And kind of hollowing out downtown. Now, that's something that really has improved is our downtown Little Rock. It's not perfect. It's not there all the way.
But I remember – I mean, North Little Rock, Argenta. The Joint, which is a comedy club. They do skits. One of their first skits was this couple. They're coming down Interstate 40, cross-country. They have a car accident and they die. And they go up to heaven, the white man and the wife. And they go to St. Peter. And St. Peter motions the woman to come on through. She's good to go. And her husband starts to follow her and he stops. And St. Peter says, "No. No. "Wait a minute. Yeah. We got some issues here." And he's looking and says, "I'm afraid you're going to have to go to purgatory for a while." And the husband says, "Purgatory? Where's purgatory?" And he says Downtown, North Little Rock 1985.
[0:23:29] KM: It's not right.
[0:23:30] AL: It was.
[0:23:31] KM: But it's not anymore.
[0:23:32] AL: No. It's not anymore. I think the only functioning business was – and I think it was the Rialto Theater, was soft porn. And that was the only thing that was functioning. And now they've done such a fabulous job in Argenta. And they've done a real good job in moving downtown Little Rock forward to us.
[0:23:50] KM: Yeah. Yeah. I feel very safe in downtown North Little Rock. Safer than I do in downtown Little Rock actually.
[0:23:56] GM: Yeah. In some places.
[0:23:57] AL: Aha. In some places. Restaurants. You talk a lot in your magazine about restaurants, catfish, barbecue. What do you think about the – it used to be Italian on every corner. Now it's Mexican food on every corner.
[0:24:10] AL: It's a blessing. Because back then we only had one or two Mexican restaurants. And they were run by [Name inaudible 0:24:16]. And then now we have so many Hispanic people have moved in. We're getting some really good food.
[0:24:24] KM: If people want to pick up the magazine, they can read some Arkansas Tales from the poet Miller Williams, novelist Donald Harington, historian Dee Brown. I think that that's really neat.
[0:24:37] AL: Charles Portis.
[0:24:37] KM: Charles Portis. Wow. You have had some impressive writers.
[0:24:44] AL: We've always had better writers than we could afford. Because we also had Max Brantley. John Brummett was there. Mike Trimble. Ernie Dumas.
[0:25:02] KM: Ernie Dumas. Yeah.
[0:25:03] AL: Yeah. Great people. And George Fisher. And I think one reason is because we got to got out of their way and let them let those writers write and those editors edit. And that's –
[0:25:18] KM: And Bill Terry.
[0:25:19] AL: And Bill Terry.
[0:25:19] KM: Did you say Mike Trimble?
[0:25:20] AL: Yeah.
[0:25:21] KM: Bob Lancaster?
[0:25:22] AL: Yeah. Oh. Yeah, Lancaster was incredible.
[0:25:23] KM: Yeah. I mean, great. Let's talk about the 80s. La Bare. This is where I think the world has changed so much and not for the better. But I really realized we've got DWIs now. And nobody can go partying anymore. And that's probably a good thing. There's more traffic on the road. It's all of that. But Gray's looking at me like, "What is the La Bare?”
[0:25:42] GM: Yeah. I don't remember this.
[0:25:43] KM: Tell him what the La Bare is.
[0:25:44] AL: It's a male strip thing.
[0:25:46] KM: For girls.
[0:25:48] AL: For girls. Yeah.
[0:25:48] GM: Yes. It was down by the river – yes. Aha. I read the review in the Times online. And it was hilarious. I never knew that place existed.
[0:26:00] AL: The women would just have more fun.
[0:26:02] KM: Chippendales was big.
[0:26:03] AL: Yeah. Chippendales kind deal. And so, yeah, that was a thing for the 80s.
[0:26:11] GM: The write-up by itself was hilarious. Never mind the place.
[0:26:13] KM: Yes. I want to tell the readers that if you do go online – because this edition is now old news. Because – how often do you publish?
[0:26:21] AL: Every month.
[0:26:22] KM: Yeah. It's old news now. But if you go online, you can still read that.
[0:26:28] AL: Yeah. We've been taking each decade online. It's arktimes.com. And you can read all kinds of stuff. And a lot of breaking news as well.
[0:26:38] KM: I am always upset with how conservative we are getting and how the women, the young women and even men, don't realize how far we've come since the 70s. That they don't realize, and I harp on this all the time to ad nauseam. But they don't realize how much we fought to have sexual equality.
[0:27:05] AL: Abortion rights.
[0:27:06] KM: Abortion rights. Sexual equality. Birth control. Healthcare. And then now we're becoming so conservative that you can't tell a dirty joke without losing your job. I mean, I understand. But –
[0:27:21] AL: Yeah. But we say that. And, certainly, our elected representatives are extremely conservative. But in Central Arkansas, it is a blue island in a red state. French Hill has never carried Pulaski County. A Republican presidential candidate has never carried Pulaski County.
[0:27:42] KM: Really?
[0:27:42] AL: Yeah. I mean, Hillary carried Pulaski County. Obama carried Pulaski County. Biden. And I'm sure Harris will as well. Now, the rest of the states is a different story.
[0:27:58] KM: Say McIntosh. I mean, nut job that got a lot done. I mean, I guess he was ADHD. I mean, the guy had more energy than anybody. Tell our listeners about Say McIntosh.
[0:28:11] AL: Say McIntosh was a restaurateur and an activist.
[0:28:15] KM: Boy, was he an activist.
[0:28:16] AL: Yeah. I mean, a lot of his activism – well, the things he would do, he'd go down to Central High School and he'd just pick up trash around the campus and on the streets and everything. And then he would go after people for not doing it themselves.
[0:28:32] KM: We need him again today.
[0:28:33] AL: Well, yeah. Now, Say didn't always pay his bills. But he also – it's interesting the Mosaic Templars is either getting ready to have – I think they're getting ready to have their Say It Ain't Say. And it's a sweet potato pie contest. And so, it's a competition to see who's got the – now that Say is not around to make sweet potato pies anymore.
[0:28:57] KM: Yeah. That was what he was known for. He was called the Sweet Potato King.
[0:29:00] AL: Sweet Potato Pie King. It sure is.
[0:29:02] KM: Yeah. He was an erratic political provocateur.
[0:29:07] AL: He was a provocator. He was on the cover of the Arkansas Times.
[0:29:10] KM: He tried to stop black crime on black crime. Wasn't he the one that put up crosses that showed all the young black boys getting killed?
[0:29:16] AL: Yeah. 17th and Martin Luther King. Back then, it was High Street, I believe. Yeah. Every time there'd be a killing, a black-on-black killing, then he would put a cross out there.
[0:29:28] KM: Again, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's still the same issue.
[0:29:33] AL: Yeah.
[0:29:34] KM: Okay. We got to talk about the burning of your building. The police corruption investigation that led to an arson burning down your Times building.
[0:29:45] AL: The Little Rock Police Department in the 70s under Chief Weeks was very corrupt. Forest Parkman who was a major, one of the top officials, he killed people.
[0:29:59] KM: Were you afraid?
[0:30:00] AL: No, I wasn't. Not really. I didn't – Bill Terry was afraid, our editor. He came out one day and they had literally picked up his car and moved at about 12 feet. Yeah. Just picked it up and moved it.
[0:30:14] KM: Just to mess with him.
[0:30:16] AL: Yeah. Bill was brave. And the way I say he was Brave, he was terrified and he kept writing the stories. He wasn't stupid. He knew that he was at risk. But we had an informant within the police department that Bill had a direct line to. He was getting a lot of tips and everything. And what started out was the Assistant Chief of Police, Pierce, they wanted to get Jim Guy Tucker. Jim Guy Tucker had been prosecuting attorney. And there was all these rumors back at the time that Jim Guy Tucker smoked dope at parties.
[0:30:52] KM: He probably did.
[0:30:53] AL: Who knows?
[0:30:54] KM: Didn't we all?
[0:30:55] AL: I never got invited into any of those parties. But anyway, what they did, this guy, this assistant chief of police, Little Rock's assistant chief, hires a guy named Larry Case, who's a thug. And he hires him to plant dope behind the front seat of Jim Guy Tucker's county prosecuting attorney's vehicle. Now, Jim Guy Tucker had moved on to be attorney general by this time. But this is back then.
[0:31:24] KM: Who put the dope behind his chair?
[0:31:26] AL: Larry Case was going to do it.
[0:31:28] KM: And that's worse for the cops?
[0:31:29] AL: He was a thug that was hired by the cops.
[0:31:30] KM: Oh, I got you.
[0:31:31] AL: But what Pierce didn't know and should have known was that Case was always wired. He would go grocery shopping, he would record the transaction at the checkout counter. Okay, everything he did 24 hours a day, he recorded it. Okay? And so, this transaction with the assistant chief was recorded.
And we heard that there was a tape. And we didn't know Larry Case. Arland Fields, who was a great reporter, he goes out there and he starts trying to find Larry Case. And he finds him. And Larry Case says, "Yeah, I'll give you the tapes for $500." Well, he might as well said $50,000. I mean, the whole damn company was founded on 200. And this guy wants 500.
But I went to a guy that I knew, a friend, and I told him what the story was. And he didn't say much. He said I want you to go park at the Worthen Bank. The Worthen Bank branch on cross street mark 10:00 and wait. I was driving a cab that day. I went and I pulled my cab up there and I rolled down the windows. And I'm waiting. A car pulls up. A guy gets out. Goes into the bank. Comes back. And as he's walking into his car, this envelope just flips through my window. And it's a bank envelope with five $100 bills in it. And so, we gave that to Arland. Arland gave it to Case and got the tapes.
And so, we were getting ready to shut down because we were so disappointed. This is our first year. We were so disappointed in our journalism. I was the editor and I was not very skilled. But anyway, we got that story the assistant chief had to resign. And we thought, "Well, we finally did something right."
[0:33:23] KM: You ran that story in –
[0:33:24] AL: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
[0:33:25] KM: And he had to resign because of your story.
[0:33:27] AL: Yeah. Yeah. And so, we said, "Well, we can't do something." We were pretty discouraged. And you don't want to – and when you're poor, poverty breeds conflict. I don't care if it's in a family or if it's in a business. If you don't have any money, every little thing is a crisis. And so, what we fed – okay. We reorganized ourselves and went forward. And here we are today. But that was because of that story.
But anyway, the cops were just horribly corrupt. They were at war with what they call the Dixie Mafia. Harry Hastings. They were at war with him and going back and forth. And Hartman – well, I could use the whole period here talking about those stories. But –
[0:34:16] KM: So how did they burn your building down?
[0:34:19] AL: We don't know who did it.
[0:34:20] KM: What happened? You just got a call in the middle of the night? Your building's on fire. From the police, "Hey, we just set fire to your building."
[0:34:26] AL: Well, we had been losing our racks. Someone was stealing our racks every night.
[0:34:30] KM: Oh, your boxes that you had your stuff in.
[0:34:32] AL: Yeah. And we couldn't – the news distributor, Sieberts, at the time would not distribute our magazine. Sig Sieberts said we were communist. Yeah. And ran communist. And so, what we did, we went to some lawyers, liberal lawyers in town, and we said, "Look, these racks cost $50. If you'll give us $50, we'll buy that rack. We'll tell you where your rack is and you will get 100% of the quarters that go into that rack until you get you $50 back plus 10%."
Well, we had their $50 back in 3 months. And so, this is how we built our rack network. And so, then they start disappearing. We don't have any racks, we don't have a magazine. And so, we start sitting out there. We start staking out our racks at night. And Buster Corley, who eventually became Busters, which eventually became David Busters. Buster Corley was running TJI Fridays at the time. And we had a rack at the Shack Barbecue. And so, Buster let me sit in the foyer with a crowbar. And I would sit there at night watching my rack. And, fortunately, they never stole my rack. Because three days later, I get a knock on my door at 11 o'clock at night. I'm asleep. And it's my Ad Director Keith Weinstein. And he says, "They burned us down." And I look out the door – I'm down at 21st in Spring. And I look and the whole night sky is a light. And it's our offices burning down.
[0:36:07] KM: What corner were they on?
[0:36:08] AL: They were at Cross and 2nd. It's a vacant lot today. It's for sale, by the way, if you want to buy it. There's this beautiful old mansion that we had been able to rent. And we had sublet it to a couple little small one-man ad agencies. We were really proud of it.
Anyway, burns to the ground. And so, two days later, we get a call from the police. Said, "We found your racks." I said, "Great. Where'd you find the racks?" He said, "Down on the river. They're on a boat ramp." And I said, "I'll be down there to get them." And he says, "Don't bother. They've been blown to pieces. Someone just took a shotgun and just destroyed them." I'm kind of glad I didn't with my crowbar. Never bring a crowbar to a gunfight. But anyway –
[0:36:55] KM: Yeah. I'm telling you, people don't realize what a Wild West it used to be back in the old days, you know?
[0:36:59] AL: Yes. It had its moments.
[0:37:01] KM: It did. All right. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Arkansas Times founder Mr. Alan Leveritt. If you think this is a good interview, you got to go back and listen to our other interview. There's some encouraging words in it too. And we're not going to go over the stuff we went over in that interview because that would be redundant. You got to go back and listen to that one too. It's not quite as good of an audio recording. But it's still got a lot of content.
When we come back, we have more folklore. We got to do the '90s still. We got to do the 2000s. We got to talk about surviving the dot-com boom and Bill Clinton being elected president. We'll be right back.
[BREAK]
[0:37:35] TW: What do you think it might be that flagandbanner.com would have in stock and that you can get a sale price on right now that would be perfect for advertising party decorations or crowd direction? Yep, you guessed it. String pennants. The selection is huge and the savings is great.
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[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:38:12] KM: We're speaking today with Arkansas Times founder Mr. Alan Leveritt who is celebrating the papers – or is it a magazine?
[0:38:19] AL: It's a magazine. And a website.
[0:38:21] KM: And a website. Oh, that's right. For 50 years in business. That is no easy accomplishment. Because every decade in business, having also been in business 50 years, is hugely different. I talk about door-to-door sales, versus internet sales, versus mail-order sales. I mean, it just changes constantly. And you have been very good. There are all the other papers. The Spectrum, the Free Press. They're gone.
[0:38:51] AL: Yeah.
[0:38:51] KM: There's just the two of you left.
[0:38:52] AL: Well, you got to look I mean all over Arkansas. We've had 4,000 newspapers shut down across the country.
[0:39:00] KM: 4,000.
[0:39:00] AL: Yeah. And it's because you have Google and Facebook have sucked up 70% of the local ad dollars that used to go to radio, television, and newspaper in a local market. But I'll tell you, the Times has grown from five editorial people two and a half years ago to 11 today. And we're getting ready to hire 12. And so, we have started a philanthropic effort because the Times is – a lot of people, they see the Times as the voice of the blue community in a red state.
And if you're the spokesman for a significant part of the state that feels disenfranchised, it feels somewhat under siege perhaps from the right, then those people very often look to someplace like the Times to give their support and, thank goodness, some of their money. And so, we've really benefited from that. But what we've done, we've taken 100% of the donations that we've gotten and we've applied it towards hiring more writers, more reporters. Getting more reporters on the street so that we can make up for this loss of coverage that has happened.
[0:40:11] KM: The newspaper war of 13 years is over. We're in the 90s now, listeners. They have been fighting for 13 years. The Gazette is a morning paper like it is today. A lot of people don't know, there used to be two papers here. And it would come in the morning. And then in the afternoons, all the kids after school would throw the Democrat paper. And so, you either took the afternoon paper, or you took the morning paper, or you took both.
Morning paper, The Gazette, was liberal. And the afternoon paper, the Democrat, was not. And I interviewed husband and he tells – if anybody wants to go listen to how he did it through free advertisings in the classifieds. He is a genius. That guy is smart. Just like you, Alan.
He outlasts The Gannetts, Gazette. Because he's got deep pocket.
[0:41:03] AL: And he was determined.
[0:41:05] KM: And he was determined. He wanted to be – they own cable companies. They wanted a bunch of stuff. He goes and Gannett finally sells it to him. We get today the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that they're still running. But you are upset because you have lost the liberal voice. And so, you make a big decision in 1991 to start – you changed from a monthly paper to a –
[0:41:28] AL: We were a monthly magazine just like this. And Mara, my wife, I was sitting there talking to her one day and I said, "There ought to be something we can do. Because all these guys –" I mean, George Fisher is going to be out of work. Are you kidding me?
[0:41:42] KM: Oh, so many people.
[0:41:42] AL: Yeah. And she said, "Why don't we take the times to go from monthly to a weekly newspaper like an alternative weekly newspaper?" which was another niche that was very popular at the time. And so, we went out and raised $680,000. That was the first cash infusion since 1974. But we raised $680,000 from 24 local business people. And took the magazine from monthly to weekly. And hired the senior editorial staff of the Arkansas Gazette as they were hitting the streets. That's when Ernie, and Max, and George Fisher, and Doug Smith, and all these people came in.
[0:42:20] KM: Talent. Very talented.
[0:42:22] AL: Yeah. And so, we did that for the next 25 years. And then in 2018 – I mean, we've been dying since 2007. And in 2018, we realized we couldn't go on any longer. And so, we converted back to a magazine. And then we started – we had very big website, very aggressive. And Max had led that. And we started selling subscri – we said, "Look, we'd like you to buy an online subscription – we had a paywall. But we would like you to buy an online subscription that will support the Times. And we will use that to support our editorial department."
Today, we've got 4,116 paid subscribers to our website that pays basically for the editorial staff. It's half a million dollars. And that has saved us. And then with Walker, who has done our philanthropy, he's done a fabulous job. And so, we've got all these new – we've basically reinvented the publishing business model that's been broken for a decade or more.
And we've been able to get people like Matt Campbell, Blue Hog Report, who he broke the story on the lectern. The governor's lectern. The $18,000, $19,000 lectern. We've been able to get people like Matt and others. I mean, Benji Hardy. Just a lot of great people. Austin Gelder, our editor-in-chief. And we've been able to get these people and we've been able to pay them, thanks to our subscriptions and thanks to the philanthropy.
[0:44:11] KM: The abortion was in the paper in the 90s. Went back to the Supreme Court. Stayed in place. Again, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Now we're back talking about abortions. The gay marriage was on the ballot. Pray away the gay. I don't know when they start letting you get married, Gray. You're gay. When do they start letting you get married?
[0:44:31] GM: 2015? Yeah.
[0:44:33] AL: Yeah. About 2015.
[0:44:34] KM: This was 2000. They were trying to pray away the gay.
[0:44:37] GM: That was when we were in high school.
[0:44:38] AL: Max Brantley's blog started in 2014 called the Arkansas Blog. Is he doing that while he's retired?
[0:44:45] AL: No. Actually, Max does do – he does contribute to the blog. But we've got 11 people now doing what Max used to do by himself.
[0:44:57] KM: When I read that about Max, he started his blog in 2004. Did you know I started my blog in 2004?
[0:45:03] AL: No. I did not know that.
[0:45:05] KM: I know. Right? That's when they first came out. That's exactly right. And then we have the Ivorywood Woodpecker, the North America's largest woodpecker. This seems to be a farce.
[0:45:14] AL: Leslie Peacock is an avid bird watcher. She's one of our editors.
[0:45:19] KM: She saw it?
[0:45:20] AL: No. But she was paddling all through those swamps with these guys looking for it.
[0:45:27] KM: The elusive –
[0:45:27] AL: The elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker. But who knows? It still may be out there.
[0:45:33] GM: I like to think so. I still have the license plate. I'm hoping. Yeah.
[0:45:36] KM: It's like Bigfoot.
[0:45:37] GM: It's like Bigfoot. It's a little better than Bigfoot.
[0:45:40] AL: A litlte bit better.
[0:45:41] KM: This is 2010. Now we're in another decade. Head coach Bobby Petrino. Love that guy.
[0:45:48] AL: That was the best cover, I think. One of the best covers we ever did. We photoshopped the cover. And Bobby's sitting there and he's ranting and raving. And they photoshopped him with his pants down around his ankles wearing polka-dotted bloomers. And this is when he got nailed with the woman –
[0:46:10] KM: Yeah. On the back of his motorcycle. And he's back now. And we're winning again. That guy is a coach. I don't care. He is a good offensive – deep offensive coach.
[0:46:21] AL: I'm not taking anything away from him.
[0:46:22] KM: No. Me either. That's between him and his wife. I don't care. Anyway. And then seeing red, the Republican takeover. I kind of never thought about this until I was talking to my daughter. And I don't know if you've ever thought about this. But I was like, "When did we go from such a blue state to such a red state?" And she said – what's your opinion?
[0:46:44] AL: Well, we were the last Southern state to go red. And I always kind of took some pride in that. Because, historically, Arkansas, we've had terrible lynchings and a lot of stuff has gone on. But we were more of a sort of – we were a border state. We were right on the edge of the West. We were never that deep south, Mississippi, Alabama. I always gave us some credit for that.
But then after Obama got elected 2000, the next election cycle two years later, I think everyone got blown out except Bibi. And then when Bibi retired, that was it. Clinton still had a lot of support. I was kind of amazed that Hillary did not carry Arkansas. But that was a different era.
[0:47:28] KM: Yeah. I agree. We're speaking today with Arkansas Times founder, Mr. Alan Leveritt, who's celebrating the paper's 50 – or the magazine's 50 years in business. Today, you deal with advertising – oh, you know what we didn't talk about? Rehoming.
[0:47:44] AL: Oh, yeah.
[0:47:45] KM: You busted that story.
[0:47:46] AL: Yeah, we did. Yeah.
[0:47:47] KM: This is a good story.
[0:47:49] AL: What was that guy's name?
[0:47:52] KM: Representative Justin Harris and his wife Marsha.
[0:47:55] AL: Yeah. God, it was terrible.
[0:47:57] KM: It was terrible. We don't have a lot of time in this interview. But if anybody wants to know about rehoming, you got laws changed for rehoming. Go back to, like I said, our earlier interview. You tell a long, really good story about your investigative reporting.
[0:48:10] AL: Religiously inspired daycare center that got a lot of state money. And they teach the Bible. And then he wound up rehoming his kids to a pedophile. Yeah.
[0:48:23] KM: Yes. It was breaking news. It was picked up nationally. They were holding up the Arkansas Times on national TV and saying this guy has just busted. And you can't do this anymore. But if you adopt some kids and you don't like them, you can rehome them without telling them to state or anybody.
[0:48:40] AL: But you can't do that now.
[0:48:41] KM: But you can't do that now because of you.
[0:48:44] AL: Yeah. Yeah.
[0:48:44] KM: All right. Today, you deal with advertising boycotts from – that is a really – I just want to stop again and say that is a really good in-depth story on our last episode. If anybody wants to go hear it. But today you deal with advertising boycotts from state governments due to your outspoken reportive and investigating.
To combat the loss in revenue, you have once again outside the box and ask for donations that we talked about it. Tell us again how you do it. You go to the Arkansas –
[0:49:13] AL: Go to the Arkansas Community Foundation and you tell them you want to make a donation and you want to tag it for the Arkansas Times. And they're just great.
[0:49:23] KM: And you can even do it for like, we said, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette if you want to.
[0:49:27] AL: If you want to. Yeah. There's a lot of different things. Or if you want a subscription to the Arkansas time. It's $110 a year. It's a heck of – it really helps us.
[0:49:36] KM: Is that all?
[0:49:37] AL: Yeah.
[0:49:37] GM: Yeah, baby. It's worth it.
[0:49:38] AL: Yeah. I mean, if you say you got 4,000 of them and $120, that's a lot of money.
[0:49:44] KM: Well, for anybody that wants to move out of Arkansas, it's a good way to stay informed, too, about what's going.
[0:49:49] AL: Oh, we get a lot of – but we've got a huge website. We've got over 500,000 unique visitors a month to our website now. And that's because we've put all this money in to grow in the editorial staff. And then they have grown the story content of the website with all this breaking news. And that's attracted more and more people to the website. And that's attracted more advertisers to the website. It's a virtuous cycle. But it's sort of counterintuitive. You don't go spending all your money on writers typically. But we did. And it's worked.
[0:50:27] GM: Well, this is what they talk about when they talk about Gen Z's ability to decipher the information that they're getting, is like you have to look past the smoke and mirrors and the good production quality.
[0:50:40] AL: Excellent production quality.
[0:50:40] GM: Yeah. And really be critical about who it is, and where they're coming from, and what they're talking about. Yeah.
[0:50:47] KM: Are we going to get there, Alan? Do you have faith that the pendulum is going to swing back to good curated news again? Or is it just going to be you find what you want to hear and you watch it and get yourself worked up?
[0:50:59] AL: When I was in college and I was a conservative, everything was liberal. A conservative could hardly get a date on a college campus. And you see how it's swung. And, yeah, I think the world swings back and forth. It's just you hope at some point it doesn't swing so far right that you wind up in Hungary, or what almost happened in Poland, where you basically lose your democracy to the authoritarian right. And I'm not including real conservatives when I'm talking about the authoritarian right. I'm talking about Donald Trump. Not Lois Cheney.
[0:51:40] KM: If you could tell our listeners one thing, what would it be? This is your last question.
[0:51:47] AL: I have no idea.
[0:51:50] GM: Subscribe to the Times.
[0:51:51] KM: How about subscribe to the Times?
[0:51:51] AL: Subscribe to the Times. Yeah. Arktimes.com.
[0:51:55] KM: Or go vote.
[0:51:56] AL: Or go vote. Okay.
[0:51:57] KM: We've been speaking today with Arkansas Times founder and publisher, Mr. Alan Leveritt. Thank you.
This show was recorded in the historical Taborian Hall in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas and made possible by the good works of flagandbanner.com, Mr. Tom Wood, our audio engineer; Mr. Jonathan Henkins, our videographer; my daughter, Miss Meghan Pittman, the production manager, and my co-host, Mr. Grady McCoy IV. AKA Son Gray.
To our listeners, we would like to thank you for spending time with us. We hope you've heard or learned something that's been inspiring or enlightening. And that it, whatever it is, will help you up your business, your independence, or your life. I'm Kerry McCoy and I'll see you next time on Up In Your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.
[OUTRO]
[0:52:41] GM: You've been listening to Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy. For links to resources you heard discussed on today's show, go to flagandbanner.com, select radio show and choose today's guest. If you'd like to sponsor this show or any show, contact me, Gray. That's gray@flagandbanner.com. Stay informed of exciting upcoming guests by subscribing to our YouTube channel or podcast wherever you like to listen.
Kerry's goal is simple, to help you live the American dream.
[END]
