Glen and April talk, in this first part of our conversation, with Janie Ginocchio and Scott Perkins, co-founders of Tracking Arkansas, a nonpartisan accountability journalism outlet they launched in 2025. What began as a public resource for tracking legislative bills has grown into a publication that combines policy analysis with investigative reporting. Janie and Scott walk us through that evolution, describe their framework for deciding which stories warrant deeper investigation, and introduce their ongoing series "The Arkansas Machine," which examines how political relationships, lobbying, and money influence public policy in Arkansas — across both parties. They also take us inside a specific case involving campaign finance reports and connections between the Attorney General's office and members of the legislature, explaining how that reporting led them to file formal ethics complaints and what they learned about the ethics complaint process itself — including its strengths, its limitations, and the gaps in current law that the process revealed. Throughout, they reflect on what it means to do this kind of work in a state with concentrated political power, and why they believe an informed public is essential to a functioning democracy. Tracking Arkansas is available at TrackingArkansas.com, on Substack, and on Facebook.

On The Other Hand podcast episode #167: Premier episode of A Braver Arkansas TV show, July 7 2026:

This audio-only recording of the debut episode of A Braver Arkansas, a new TV program on Arkansas TV created in conjunction with Braver Angels Arkansas, sets the stage for the whole series. Co-hosts Glen White and April Chatham-Carpenter open with candid personal stories about relationships in their own lives strained by political division — what they tried, what worked, and what didn't. From there, they turn to the bigger picture — what Braver Angels actually is and why it started in 2016. They summarize what Braver Angels Arkansas has been doing across the state since its origin in 2018, and they explain what "depolarizing America" means (and explicitly does not mean — not abandoning convictions or finding a mushy middle, but changing how people disagree). Glen and April also discuss why this TV show was created now, and they issue an invitation for people to join in as the series continues. To view the video of our first episode of A Braver Arkansas, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8T4VADH_2I&list=PLeFP4XlwSUnk&index=3.

Our On The Other Hand podcast listeners can expect to hear periodic future recordings from later episodes of A Braver Arkansas, along with continued episodes of our interviews with community leaders, as we continue to explore, in both audio and video format now, how we can reduce political polarization in Arkansas, find common ground with those of differing views, and work toward better communities in Arkansas.

In part two of our conversation with Nate Coulter, Nate describes reopening CALS safely during the pandemic and parlaying that credibility into a tax-adjustment win that funded raises and renovations without a tax increase. He walks through Act 372 — the 2023 law that would have criminalized librarians for "harmful to minors" materials — his conversations with sponsors Dan Sullivan and Rob Steinbuck, and his concern that a "government speech" legal doctrine could let officials purge collections based on political makeup. He distinguishes good-faith concerns about kids' access from bad-faith actors exploiting homophobia & transphobia, and notes the fight has quieted locally but remains live at the state level.