WWBT is shuffling its evening anchor lineup as longtime newsman Gene Cox steps aside after more than three decades with the Richmond NBC-affiliate.

Curt Autry (near right), who currently anchors the 5:30 and 11 p.m. newscasts, will move into Cox’s familiar spot at 5 and 6, joining Sabrina Squire. 4 p.m. anchor Ryan Nobles (far right), who also handles the WWBT-produced 10 p.m. newscast on WRLH, will take over for Autry at 5:30.

“Gene has been a good friend and mentor since I arrived at NBC12, I’m honored and humbled to be following in his footsteps,” Autry said about replacing Cox, who announced in April that he would be leaving the WWBT anchor desk.

“I am excited about a new career challenge,” Nobles tweeted yesterday, announcing his move to 5:30.

This afternoon in the Map Room of the White House, anchors and reporters from WFAA (ABC) in Dallas, KCNC (CBS) Denver, WTHR (NBC) Indianapolis and WRAL (CBS) Raleigh will head to the White House for interviews with Pres. Obama. This is a continued effort by the White House to localize their message — in this case, the president’s “shared responsibility and shared prosperity” push.

KCNC political reporter Shaun Boyd will interview the president. On Twitter, the station is promoting live reports at “5p/6p/10p.” For the White House, the hope is that KCNC shares the video with other CBS O&Os in, for example, Sacramento, and Dallas/Ft. Worth.

In Dallas/Ft. Worth’s WFAA, the White House gets access to other Belo-owned stations across Texas — KHOU (CBS) in Houston, KENS (CBS) in San Antonio and KVUE (ABC) in Austin. USA Today has more on Obama’s Texas strategy.

This is the third in a wave of local TV interviews. Last month, the president sat down with WSOC (Charlotte) anchor Natalie Pasquarella, WSVN (Miami) anchor Lynn Martinez, and WPVI’s (Philadelphia) Jim Gardner, who has interviewed every president since 1976.

In February, Obama did interviews with Carol Williams of Cincinnati’s WCPO, Charles Benson of Milwaukee’s WTMJ, and Ryan Nobles of Richmond’s WWBT.

A tweet sent out this week by WRC reporter Craig Melvin (above) has landed onetime Virginia senator George Allen in the middle of yet another racial quagmire as he tries to regain his old senate seat in the 2012 election.

Melvin, who is black, tweeted that Allen, whose political career crumbled a few years back after he used a racial slur during a campaign speech, had asked him for the second time in five months, “What position did you play?”

“I did not a play a sport,” Melvin tweeted, pointedly. The intimation being of course that Allen kept asking Melvin about his sports history because he is black. Read more

“I think with local reporters he thought that he’d get a friendlier conversation than the correspondents that cover him everyday,” WWBT reporter Ryan Nobles explained on the NBC-affiliate’s evening newscast on Wednesday, after interviewing the President.

“I think this will be the first of many opportunities that stations like us get to interview the President between now and when he’s up for reelection.”

Nobles was invited to the White House on Wednesday, along with Carol Williams of Cincinnati’s WCPO and Charles Benson of Milwaukee’s WTMJ, to do one-on-one interviews with the President, who is in the midst of selling his new budget proposal to the public.

The invitations were, as Nobles pointed out last night, a way for Obama to target the local contingencies of the country’s three most prominent critics of the budget: Richmond’s Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader; Cincinnati’s John Boehner, the Speaker of the House; and Milwaukee’s Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee.

“It’s interesting to see that, now here we are at the two-year mark in his Presidency, they’re already gearing up in campaign mode,” Nobles said. Read more

“The idea on the White House’s part is the President is trying to sell his budget proposal,” WCPO‘s Carol Williams explained this morning as she stood outside the White House, awaiting her one-on-one interview with President Obama.

Like Charles Benson of Milwaukee’s WTMJ, Williams was invited to the White House to interview the President as he attempts to put a positive spin on his recent budget proposal.

Ryan Nobles of Richmond NBC-afiliate WWBT is also in D.C. today to interview Obama.  This morning, WCPO, WTMJ, and WWBT all asked their viewers to submit questions for the President.