The Online Home And Archive Of Radio News Anchor & Reporter Michael Hibblen

RECENT REPORTS:

-Arkansas Surgeon General Joe Thompson is challenging his Arrest for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and attempting to influence a public servant. Police say Dr. Thompson was drunk and combative when they were called to his home on April 7th after he got into a confrontation with a private security guard. Later a police Recording of the arrest was released, giving further insight into the exchange leading up to his arrest. You can hear a report of mine including that audio on the link.

-In an effort to expand business between Arkansas and China, Governor Mike Beebe departed on April 4th for a 12 day trade mission to China. The country has grown in recent years into the state's fourth largest trading partner.

-Arkansas highway officials are studying the possibility of converting I-40 into a toll road between North Little Rock and Memphis to fund work to expand the roadway. With two lanes in each direction and lots of truck traffic, it's a notoriously congested stretch of road. Officials would like to eventually expand it to three lanes in each direction.

-The commission overseeing Little Rock's Airport voted to rename the facility the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, in honor of the former President and Secretary of State. The decision came at a meeting in which commissioners took comments from supporters and opponents of former first couple.

-See my Previous Reports for KUAR.

After 23 years in radio, today I'm the assignment editor for Little Rock, Arkansas NPR station KUAR-FM 89.1. I'm a native Arkansan who returned to my hometown in 2009 after 12 years in Miami, Florida. While my passion is radio, I also write for newspapers and appear regularly on the AETN television program Arkansas Week.

Watch Arkansas Week May 4, 2012 on PBS. See more from Arkansas Week.

This time on AETN's Arkansas Week:

I'm a regular panelist on the week in review show, aired on the Arkansas Educational Television Network. That week I joined host Steve Barnes, Jeff Hankins from Arkansas Business and Independent Journalist Ernie Dumas. We discussed better than expected revenue numbers for the state, a pending Medicaid shortfall and a political action committee called "Retire Pryor," which is already taking aim at Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, two and a half years before he is up for reelection. If you're on an iPad and can't see the player to the left, click here to watch the show on AETN's web site.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Filling in, hosting KUAR's Not Necessarily Nashville

It's always a treat to be able to sit in for Flap Jones and play some of my favorite alt-country music. That night's show came just a few days after I saw the legendary outlaw songwriter Billy Joe Shaver perform in Little Rock, so I played a few songs he had done at the previous week's Farm Aid concert. I played Sun Records-era Johnny Cash to note the passing of his longtime bass player Marshall Grant in Jonesboro, Ark. I slipped in a couple of songs at the start referencing the L&N Railroad, as well as some Steve Earle, Matt Stell, Del McCoury, Gary Stewart and more. I'll be filling in again for Flap on October 15th so that she can attend the Yonder Mountain Harvest Festival in north Arkansas, so there's more fun ahead.

AUDIO: Hosting Not Necessarily Nashville on KUAR, August 20, 2011. It's an hour long program that begins at 7 pm on Saturday nights. Download as MP3.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Remembering the Elian Gonzalez Custody Fight 11 Years Later

This was, without question, the biggest story of my career, and yet I haven't had audio of it on my web site until now. The saga of a little boy, caught in a custody fight between family members in the U.S. and his father in Cuba, brought renewed attention to the plight of people on the island and the exile community in Miami. I was working at WIOD the day the five-year-old boy arrived in the U.S. on a raft, one of the few survivors of a failed attempt to brave the Florida Straits, which took the life of his mother and several others.

For the next five months I spent much of my time in Miami's Little Havana, getting outraged reaction among Cuban-Americans, as officials and courts repeatedly said he should be returned to his only surviving parent. It was during my coverage of this story that I went from being a reporter for local news station WIOD to a national reporter for CBS Radio News. As I was recently revising the page looking at my time at WIOD I decided I needed to finally get this together. My reports from those days were packed away on mini-discs and cassette tapes that I've only recently, finally compiled into one retrospective, which you can listen to or download. These also include reports for It's only a fraction of my reporting on the story, but it's some of the more memorable moments and what I happened to be able to preserve. Listening back, I had forgotten the sheer emotion of that story. I also can't help but wonder how Elian Gonzalez is doing as he nears adulthood.

AUDIO: A compilation of reports on the Elian Gonzalez custody battle from 1999 and 2000 for WIOD, CBS News and the program America In the Morning, runs 25:07. Download as MP3.

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