In the news

Dick Crippen back on the air

Former WFLA-Ch. 8 sports director Dick Crippen will return to the airwaves in July, hosting a series of reports dubbed Extra on Senior Living for 24-hour local cable newschannel Bay News 9 on Saturday evenings.

Crippen, now 62, left WFLA on New Year's Eve 1999 after 18 years when the station declined to renew his contract. A fixture at area TV sports departments for nearly 35 years, he was immediately hired by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball team as their executive director of community development - a job he will keep while appearing on the Bright House networks channel Bay News 9.

The former sports anchor said his new weekly segments will resemble the weekly Crip Notes reports he delivered on WFLA for two years after his departure as a regular staffer - this time, focusing on events, people and issues involving senior citizens in the Tampa Bay area.

The segments will begin July 26, airing at 53 minutes past the hour, starting at 5 p.m.

"Channel 8 called (my departure) a retirement, but it wasn't something I had planned. ... I hadn't intended to stop working," said Crippen, explaining his still-active work schedule, which includes some commercials. "I always tell people, "A buck and microphone, and I'm there."'

NEW YORK - After more than 20 years, CNN's Lou Dobbs is retiring the name of Moneyline.

His nightly news show isn't going anywhere, nor is it changing much, but beginning next Monday, it will be known as Lou Dobbs Tonight. It airs weeknights at 6 p.m. for an hour.

The Lou Dobbs Moneyline title "connoted, for too many viewers, a market services show, which it has never been," Dobbs said Monday. The new name better conveys the show's broader focus, he said.

Haven't had enough of Hillary yet?

In her first live interview discussing her new memoir, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., will appear on Larry King Live from 9 to 10 tonight on CNN.

Clinton will talk about her new book, Living History, her experiences in the White House and in the U.S. Senate, and her plans (which, according to the Associated Press, don't include running for the White House).

Clinton has been busy lately, making the rounds to promote Living History, for which Simon & Schuster paid her $8-million.

She sat down with Barbara Walters Sunday night on ABC to discuss her reaction to learning that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had lied to her about Monica Lewinsky.

AND, SPEAKING OF HER NEW BOOK: More than 1,000 people clamored for a copy, an autograph and a chance to meet the senator on Monday as she launched a rock star-like tour to promote the memoir.

The scheduled one-hour event at a midtown Manhattan bookstore stretched more than 21/2 hours, as Clinton kept signing copies and passers-by hopped onto the end of the line.

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