The publisher of a left-leaning, Kentucky media outlet will bring his first Commonwealth Conversation — billed as a dialogue about the issues of the day between a conservative and a liberal — to Hopkinsville this week.
Bruce Maples will be in conversation with Republican state Sen. Whitney Westerfield, of Crofton, on Thursday, Aug. 11, at Christian County Middle School. It starts at 7 p.m.
Maples publishes the online outlet Forward Kentucky, which he calls “the progressive voice for Kentucky politics.”
He explained the concept for Commonwealth Conversations in a recent Forward Kentucky article:
“Three years ago, I had an idea. What if we could get someone from the Left and someone from the Right to discuss issues of the day in a calm and open dialogue, and do it in front of an audience? I’d call the event a ‘Commonwealth Conversation,’ and if it went well, we’d try to do them at various locations across the state,” Maples wrote.
“Then COVID hit, and the whole idea went in the drawer. Until now. It seemed to me a few months ago that it was a good time to take it back out of the drawer. So I reached out to Whitney Westerfield about it. Why him? Because, frankly, he seems to me to be one of the more reasonable Republicans in Frankfort. And he liked the idea, and agreed to work out the details on his end.”
Alan Watts, of WKDZ Radio, will moderate the discussion. The public is invited.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
