Whatever happened to former News 12 anchor Stone Grissom?

On Aug. 28, 2011, just as Hurricane Irene hit Long Island, Stone Grissom launched his News 12 anchor career. Over the next nine years, he'd become a popular and reliable on-air presence. When he abruptly left in 2020, all that accumulated goodwill followed him out the door.

Grissom bolted for a TV news job in Elmira (NBC station WETN/18), then one near Dallas (KXII/12 — also known as "News 12") to be nearer his wife, Dr. Maureen Grissom, a Wantagh native who teaches at the Houston College of Medicine.

Now, after a brief detour from TV news, Grissom runs the 52-person newsroom of WRGB/6, the CBS affiliate in Schenectady, which covers the Albany area.

What brought you back north? And don't tell me the weather. 

[Laughs] I missed the horrible snow and wanted to get the full effect. Kidding — of course. I was recruited to come back here. I'd been a consultant working with private industry — oil and gas companies — teaching their executives how to communicate with [journalists.]

So no on-air role at WRGB?

Correct. In Texas I did get an offer to get back on the air, but at this point in my life, I associate my on-air world with Long Island. I almost feel like it'd be cheating by anchoring somewhere else because I'd feel like I'd be talking to my Long Islander viewers.

You never wanted to anchor again later?

I didn't. In my head, I'd retired from the on-air part, which left me to concentrate on the editorial side [and focus] on information distribution versus traditional news and how people get their information. If you don't exist on someone's smartphone screen, you are [former video rental giant] Blockbuster.

You joined WRGB almost exactly a year ago (Jan. 30). What were your big local stories?

Two, including one on the Albany District Attorney race. We uncovered that the D.A. had been writing himself state grants, giving himself grant money and some to staffers as bonuses. Some of these grants were legal, some questionable ... . As a result of our reporting, he was primaried in June and ended up losing. The other was about a small-town council member running for state assembly who was caught on a doorbell camera — of all things — replacing the mailer of an opponent with his own. Seems petty but we were the station to break that.

To dredge up not-quite-ancient history, why did you leave News 12 in the first place?

I wanted to go more into management [and have] more editorial control about what was going on the air. That was the direction I was going in. I had always had a supervisory role there, starting off as a legal analyst then moved over to the anchor job. I was developing segments and trying to stretch what we were doing editorially, and wanted to continue doing that. But News 12 was changing in ways that seemed to contradict what I was trying to do, so it was time for me to say "I need another chapter."

If the opportunity arose, would you ever come back to News 12?

If the opportunity were there, it'd be my dream place to be. I love Long Island and appreciated the true connection I always thought I had [with viewers] there. TV was the vehicle that allowed me to tell the stories that really impacted people's lives, and I could tell that by being out in public — people never came up to me and said, "That's Stone Grissom, the guy on TV," but always talked about their connection to me through some story or segment I'd done. That's what I appreciated and what got me out of bed. I guess that's the gift that Long Island gave me, where I could feel this kinship to everyone there. So yes, if the right opportunity were there under the right parameters, absolutely. That would be wonderful.