Monday, January 25, 2010
Host is looking at life beyond 'In the News'
Tom Angleberger
The New River Valley-based reporter answers your questions Mondays in his column, What's on Your Mind?
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Q: I have always enjoyed Craig Wright's show "In the News" on Cox channel 9. He recently said that it would not be on anymore, and indeed it has not been. Could you please find out why and what Craig is doing now? I really enjoyed his show and found it quite informative as did many of my friends. Hopefully another station will pick up his show.
-- Lonnie Bower, Roanoke
A: Faithful viewers of "In the News" may recall that I was a guest on the program several times. Hopefully, they won't recall any of the dumb things I said on the air.
Craig Wright, the host of the show, was the one who had invited me on and grilled me with questions in that big TV voice of his. So, to answer your question, I turned the tables on him and asked him to tell me what happened to the local news roundtable.
Cox Communications decided to focus on shows with more regional appeal, he explained. That way the same shows could be shared with other Cox systems in the state.
"In the News," with its love for Roanoke politics and personalities, didn't fit. He was given the opportunity to continue the show if he became the producer -- lining up sponsors, paying the crew, etc. Adding all that to the work he was already putting into each show would have been too much, he said, so he decided to let the show end.
"I thought that eight years was a good long run," he told me. But that didn't make saying goodbye easy.
For his final show he invited WVTF's Gene Marrano and local politico Al Bedrosian, both frequent guests of the show. The tough part came when he signed off with his trademark personal message -- the "Wright Angle."
"It was very difficult," he said. "It was heartbreaking."
Now he's "trying to move on," he said. He's still working his main job -- dealing poker -- and hopes to do more voice-over work and commercials. But, he doesn't have any plans to bring "In the News" back on Cox or anywhere else.
He's also taking a little break from being one of the Roanoke Valley's biggest news junkies. For eight years he studied local events constantly to prepare for each week's show.
I asked him to look back on those eight years and pick the biggest story. He named the Virginia Tech shootings and the persistent string of tragedies that have involved Tech ever since.
But the most fascinating story, he said, has been the evolution of downtown Roanoke -- from the amphitheater that hasn't been built to the art museum that has.
Grammar Grumblings
We've got something a little different this week: an ungrumble.
Betsy Biesenbach, of Roanoke, wrote in to make the case for the word "ain't."
"I think 'ain't' is a perfectly good word when used sparingly and for emphasis. To say 'The boy isn't right' is to imply that he is simply misinformed. But when you say 'The boy ain't right,' well, you understand that he just ain't RIGHT."
Well put! You've convinced me, but I'm afraid our Grammar Guru, retired English professor Virgil Cook, isn't an easy sell on this particular word.
He agrees that the phrase "ain't right" carries a different meaning than "isn't right," but that particular word has such a stigma attached that he just can't bring himself to endorse it even in conversational use.
What do you think, readers? Does "ain't" have a place in our vocabulary? Or should it be stamped out.
Got a question? Got an answer? Call Tom Angleberger at 777-6476 or send an e-mail to woym@roanoke.com. Don't forget to provide your full name, its proper spelling and your hometown. Look for Tom Angleberger's column on Mondays.
