An Interesting Chat With Julie Newman (Friday, 7:30, 10 p.m.)

That's me with supermodel Julie Newman (a dang good interviewer).^

Julie Newman and I sat down this morning to record Friday's second edition of "Blue Ridge Week with Julie Newman," a new public affairs program, featuring news people on WBRA-Public Television Fridays at 7:30 and 10 p.m.

You can see the entire show here. Scroll down and click on the screen.

Julie looks like a supermodel and it's easy to stereotype her, but she's one of the best interviewers I've seen in years. I'd put her in Gene Marrano's league. She did her homework today, asked simple questions, let me answer them, followed up intelligently and kept the session moving at an interesting pace.

We had a grand chat for 30 minutes and I hope you'll join us. Julie characterized it as "conversation over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table" and that's exactly what it felt like. Not easy to accomplish with a bunch of cameras staring at you, but in this case, ease was the order of the day.

This program is a worthy addition to the conversation in this part of the world. If you miss it tomorrow, you can plug into the Web site version here. Just scroll down a bit. I'm told it will be posted Friday before air time.