Wendy Corr:
Hey there folks, welcome to The Roundup. We're a Cowboy State Daily podcast that features interesting people from the Cowboy State.
And today - I think this is the one that I've tried the hardest to get, which is ridiculous. This is the person that I've really wanted to get on from the beginning. And he finally said, Yes!
We're going to have a conversation with co-founder and executive editor for Cowboy State Daily, Jimmy Orr.
Jimmy, it's about time we got you on The Roundup, because you yourself have a fantastic Wyoming success story, and you have brought that success back here to Wyoming after being out there.
You've been in the White House. You have been at the LA Times. You have worked for multiple government officials and elected officials.
Jimmy, I just want to get started by saying thank you for what you have brought to the state with your vision for Cowboy State Daily, because I think we are all better for it. And tell us a little bit about your love for this state that has brought you away from it, and brought you back.
Jimmy Orr:
Yeah, Wendy, it's really good to be here - and give credit where credit is due, I mean, we have a great team of people. We really do. You and I have been doing this for over five years now.
Wendy Corr:
Isn't that ridiculous?
Jimmy Orr:
No, it is. It's insane. Back when Cowboy State Daily was a completely different beast. It's nothing like it was when we started this five years ago - and then, of course, we wouldn't be where we are today without Wayne Hughes. I mean, Wayne's the reason that we get to do what we do, and we are very, very grateful to Wayne and what he's done for all of us, in allowing us to do what we do.
Wendy Corr:
Absolutely, I want to make sure that we talk about that later and how Wayne stepped into the picture.
Jimmy Orr:
Yeah, he's the reason that we're doing everything. So we're very grateful for that, and it's important to mention that up front.
But yeah, so we've been doing this for five years now. I'm from Cheyenne, Wendy, grew up here in Cheyenne, which is where I am now. I left for a number of years, and then was fortunate enough to find a way to come back here and then get involved with Cowboy State Daily and help co-find it.
Jimmy Orr:
You know, my first job out of high school, I worked for two Wyoming legends, absolute legends. One, thankfully, is still around today, but I worked for Larry Birleffi, who was the voice of the Wyoming Cowboys at KFBC. You and I kind of did the same thing. Got our start in radio journalism.
Right out of high school, Al Simpson's office, Senator Al Simpson's office was hiring an office assistant, and I applied for that job. And I was able to work for Dee Roediker and Olivia Hague in the Cheyenne office, and I was working for Larry Birleffi at KFBC, and was going to Laramie County Community College, where I met Don Day. We were on the student newspaper together.
Been friends with with Don now for 40 years, which is insane, but yeah, I was able to work for Al and for Larry, and that's what got me started in kind of a lifelong focus in journalism and in politics,
Wendy Corr:
Those two that have just been the thread for your career all the way through. At what point did you find an opportunity to leave Wyoming, to go do more interesting things and create more interesting life experiences and more connections? What took you away from Wyoming?
Jimmy Orr:
Well, I think a lot of people don't appreciate Wyoming for what it is, and so the world is always more exciting when you're a kid outside. And I wanted to experience, you know, the big world.
And so I graduated from college and went to school outside of St Louis and applied for a job in Senator Malcolm Wallop’s office. I wanted to go back to DC.
And got that job, and was working in Washington as a Deputy Director of Communications, and did that for a couple years. He decided to retire after 18 years, and so I moved back to Wyoming after a little over two years in Washington with Senator Malcolm Wallop.
I moved back with Rob Wallace. Rob Wallace, I met, he was the director of the Senate Energy Committee. And I moved back with him.
Rob ran for Congress in 1994 against Barbara Cubin, Jim Magagna, Steve Cranfill and Doug Chamberlain, so all names that we know. And Rob came in second place. Barbara Cubin won in 1994.
But that's where I met Paul Ulrich, who's been on your show, and Jonathan Downing, and all these great people, all lifelong friends. It was the greatest summer. I mean, it was just hilarious. We had such a great time.
Rob came in second, and I give Rob, you know, I make fun of Rob forever, because in 1994 every Republican won, it was a sweep of the Republicans. That's when Newt Gingrich became speaker of the house, and it was a Republican revolution in 1994. And I always make fun of Rob. Rob was the only Republican to lose, and he blames me. I blame him.
Regardless, we had moved on. I joined Governor Jim Geringer's staff. He was running for governor, and he was running against Kathy Karpan back in 1994, so I joined him for the general election, and he was victorious. And so I worked as press secretary for Governor Jim Geringer for four years.
Rob was the first Chief of Staff and that was a great experience working for the governor. And as a matter of fact, Wendy, Governor Jim Geringer was employed by NASA. He was some kind of scientist. He was some kind of rocket scientist or whatever. Very smart guy, really smart guy.
So anyway, he was very much into the internet, and the Internet was brand new, and so he kind of brought me into that. I became fascinated by it as well. He was one of the first to have a website, and so we built that website together.
But he was also the second elected official in the entire world to webcast, to stream. We streamed a press conference back in 1996. He was only the second one, first one in the country, second one in the world. The first was the president of Malaysia, or Indonesia. Or something. But Governor Jim Geringer was number two.
And so we put out a press release saying that the governor was going to do this press conference, and we were going to live stream it on his website, right? And so no longer, you know, did you have to have a radio or a TV, or whatever, you could see it, you could hear it on your desktop. This is 1996.
So we streamed this press conference, then we went back and looked at the logs. The numbers were not impressive. Wendy, a grand total of nine people tuned in. Five of those people were in the governor's office.
So Joan Barron, who was a reporter for the Casper Star, who is now a columnist with Cowboy State Daily, who has covered Wyoming politics since 1970 - she's 95, sharp as a tack, wonderful person. She covered this press conference for Governor Geringer, and specifically, was interested in, well, how many people tuned in?
She called me, so I checked the logs, a grand total of nine, five in the governor's office. So you know it was, it's, it's all about spin, right? If you're a press secretary. So I said, ‘Quite a few,’ and she didn't press me on it. So that's what was reported in the Casper Star, you know, ‘Governor Holds Historic Webcast.’ That's what it was called back then. And the quote was ‘Quite a few.’
And really that was true, because we know, we know Joan, and Kerry Drake - Kerry Drake is still around, great guy. We know they tuned in. We know the governor's office tuned in. So really nobody tuned in. But who cared? We could say we were the first in the country to do it.
Wendy Corr:
Which I think is so impressive. And look at us now, Jimmy, look at us now. We're still still webcasting. You've made history! And now look at us, still doing this.
So Governor Jim Geringer’s office, you had amazing experiences, there, groundbreaking experiences there. What I'm really interested in is how you got to Washington, DC, because I think that that's fantastic. You got back to DC. You got back to DC at the end of the 90s, and the world changed.
Jimmy Orr:
Yeah, and so this accomplishment of live streaming really was able to pay off, Wendy. I went back to Washington. A friend of Rob's is a lobbyist. He's a very successful lobbyist back there, and the funniest guy in the world, Jack Ferguson. And so Rob had suggested, you know, you ought to go into lobbying.
And so after four years with the governor, I decided I would give that a shot. And Jack was loyal enough to Rob to give me a chance.
I was horrible at it. I was horrible at it. Now, some people are really good in the lobbying world. I'm not. It's not my thing. And so I went to work for this boutique lobbying firm, and it was a great experience, and great people. But it was, I hated it. Good for the people who like it!
Wendy Corr:
You have to have those experiences to know what you like, what you don't like, what you're good at, yes.
Jimmy Orr:
And so, during the 2000 campaign, and Dick Cheney was selected as a vice presidential candidate. I was talking to Jack about it, and Jack said - because Jack knew I was a horrible lobbyist and just probably wanted to offload me on to someone else - but he said, ‘Yeah, you ought to go to work for the campaign.’
And so I made some calls, and I was, you know, you get different people doing different things. And they said, ‘Well, yeah, sure, you can join us. You can be a volunteer, and you can do advance.’
So, advanced work is when you go, you move ahead of the candidate and set things up, right? And so I thought, ‘Yeah, I'll do that. Happy to do that.’
So I joined the campaign. Did advance. Another Wyoming person was on it, Dave Pickard. He's a very successful lobbyist, because he's good at it. And so we traveled across the country with the vice president, the vice presidential candidate, set things up, and it was a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun doing that.
I knew I did not want to do that for a job, because that's also a job. But, you know, I had my experience as a press secretary. I had my experience in the internet world, and I just wanted to keep doing that. I liked internet communications.
And so when, during the recount, or during the 40 days that it was being figured out in Florida - the hanging chads - and I had worked on the campaign, and so I was talking again to Jack, and Jack was just great, because he was a veteran of the Washington political scene.
He said, ‘This is what you do.’ He said, ‘If you want to work, you want to work for the White House.’ And I said, ‘Absolutely,’ because the thought was that if President Bush did win the election, and it would be and it would turn out that way.
And so there was a transition office that was being set up in McLean, Virginia. And so Jack said, ‘Be the first one to show up. Just show up and act like you're supposed to be there.’ ‘Okay, Jack.’ So I did that. I was the first one to show up. I don't know if I was the first one, but I was very early, at 5am at the McLean Virginia office.
And then Jack said, ‘And you just find a job and you claim it.’ And I said, ‘But I don't have a job, Jack.’ I was working as a volunteer. Jack said, ‘Who cares? You just claim a job.’
So I go in, and I don't know, I knew a few people from the campaign, but, you know, basically I'm just there. I'm trying to figure out, what job do I claim, right? And what I noticed in the first couple days was everybody was, I mean, you know, the smartphone revolution had not happened yet, Wendy, and so landlines were still really, really important.
And everybody was setting up their offices and the whole thing, and nobody knew where the phones were. And everybody said, well, I need a phone. I need a phone. And so I found the guy who - the AT&T guy who was doing the phones, but he didn't know what he was doing. You know, he had no direction. It was chaos in the transition office.
So I decided, I'm going to be the campaign liaison to the Phone Guy. And so I just buddied up with the AT&T guy, and I just started owning it. And so I would go in the office. ‘Okay, you need a phone? Yeah, I'm the Phone Guy. I'll take care of it for you.’ That's how I met everyone.
And so, the people in charge of the campaign office thought I was like, the Phone Guy with AT&T. Nope, I'm the Phone Guy with the campaign. And as I got to know people that they knew me as a Phone Guy, and I set up their phones and the whole thing, they got to know me.
And so the head of the office says, ‘So you're with AT&T, right? And I said, ‘No, I’m with the campaign. I was with the vice presidential campaign, and I'm the Phone Guy here.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, we don't have you on the list. We need to get you on the list as part of the campaign staff.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you do because, you know, this is what I do.’
And so that's how I got on. And I was listed with the campaign staff. I just created a job for myself. I did exactly what Jack told me to do, find a job and just own it. And I got it. So I got on the campaign staff, got to know people. Was employed by the campaign staff.
Jack is happy because I'm no longer his lobbyist. And so that's how I started, and that's how I got to know people. That's how I got to know Ari Fleischer, and so, you know, I started talking to different people, and a mutual friend who’s this guy that I -
The press secretary for the governor of South Carolina, who I was a friend with, called me and said, ‘You know who they're looking for? They're looking for an internet guy. They're looking for somebody with digital communications.’ And back in 2000 there weren't a lot of people that had internet communications background. It was the press secretary, and that's what they were looking for.
So I applied for the job, and because I was known, they’d go, ‘Yeah, we know this guy. He's the Phone Guy.’ ‘Well, actually, look at his background.’ So I was offered a job at the Department of Interior as part of the Parachute Team, because of my background with Jim Geringer.
And so I went to work for the Department of Interior for three days as a director of communications as part of the Parachute Team, just because of my background. But I wanted the job at the White House, and so I had applied, you know, did the interview and the whole thing.
And Tucker Eskew, who was the head of the Office of Media Affairs, called me at the Department of Interior on day three of the administration, and said, ‘How would you like a job at the White House?’ And so I took it. It was a massive pay cut, massive. I did not care.
I was hired on as a spokesman for the White House, for all the internet media companies, you know, cnn.com, it was different back then. And then I would run the, you know, the web page and all the internet stuff at the White House. That's how I got in.
And, wow, yeah, it was an absolute thrill to be able to go to work at the White House. And it was a great experience.
Wendy Corr:
And of course, you were there during 9/11. And we've been able to to tell your story, the story that you wrote, and put that on Cowboy State Daily when we have the anniversary of the terrorist attacks. And I know that that was something that has impacted you heavily going forward.
And tell us just a little bit about, how did your life change? How did your outlook change after being in the White House on the day of the terror attacks?
Jimmy Orr:
Yeah, you know one of the things that Andy Card, who was the Chief of Staff for the White House, came and spoke to all the different offices and said, ‘Relish every day in the White House. Be thankful every day, because it goes really fast, and just be grateful every day.’ And so I took that to heart.
And one of the things you can do as a White House staffer is you can give private White House tours of the Oval Office. And what Andy Card said, ‘When anybody asks you to give a tour, give a tour.’ He said, ‘Because you're giving them a gift they will never forget.’ And I thought that was great.
And so when anyone from Wyoming called to say, ‘Hey, can you give me a tour?’ Because people find out about this stuff, I never turned anyone down. I gave so many people tours after hours, you have to sign up for them, because I became an expert tour guide of the West Wing. I mean, it was, it was in the Oval Office. It was a wonderful thing.
And I loved doing it. And that was, I just listened to what Andy Card said and did exactly what he said. And, you know, when 9/11 happened, we were in this meeting, or actually, we had just walked back from Starbucks. We had an eight o'clock meeting, a communications meeting. We went to Starbucks, walked back, we saw this plane. It was on NBC News, and they thought, at the time, we're watching Matt Lauer and Katie Couric, they thought it was a Cessna, and so we're watching this.
And they thought it was just a little plane, and then I saw that second plane hit the Trade Center. And I went into Tucker's office. He was on the phone, and I said, ‘Tucker, a second plane hit the World Trade Center.’ And he said, ‘No, you saw a replay.’ And I said, ‘No, I saw a second plane.’ And he goes, ‘No, you - I'm on the phone. You saw a replay.’
So I'm walking back, and I'm going, well, maybe I'm an idiot. Maybe I didn't see that. Then he came back in the office and he said, ‘You were right. Gather up the team. We need to have an emergency meeting.’
And so we started talking about what was happening and then the alarms went off, and Secret Service was bashing on the doors telling us to exit the White House. And so, you know, we're running, all of us are running out to the North Lawn, and the Secret Service agents are telling us a plane was headed for the White House. So it was just, it was unbelievable. And then we were out in Lafayette park for a couple hours before we huddled in another location.
And then when I got home that evening, late that evening, I lived a quarter mile from the Pentagon, and my apartment building was full of smoke, and it was so, it was an unbelievable day. Everybody has their own memories of 911 and that was mine.
But what happened then, is we were able, we thought of the website differently. We thought of it as a very important way to communicate with the public now that the Internet was becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, and so that was my focus of the job. I was a spokesman, but my real focus, what I really liked to do, is use the power of the internet.
And so what had happened, Wendy, is he was put on assignment to go overseas and work in the prime minister's office. And so ... , she took over as a Director of Communications, or the head of the Office of Media Affairs.
And that's when my life really changed, because Tucker was very much in control. He was very kind of strict, and, ‘We will use this for official purposes only.’ And he was just very cut and dred, which is fine, great. He's a great guy, and that's who he is.
Nicole, on the other hand, was much more Laissez Faire and much more fun. And she just said to me, ‘Jimmy, have fun. Do what you want.’ And so she really gave me the keys to have fun on the White House website.
And the way that I saw it was, nobody is going to go to a website that just has policy positions, because that's boring. You;ve got to make it interesting. And that's a word that comes out of my mouth, as you know all the time. How many times a day?
Wendy Corr:
Yes, right?
Jimmy Orr:
And so White House tours were canceled in 2002 still, because of 9/11, they'd been canceled for more than a year. And these are the public tours. And so we had thought, why don't we bring the White House tours to the public, the Christmas tours to the public? How do we do that and make it fun?
Well, we put a video camera on the President's dog's head, right? President's dog was named Barney. You remember Barney?
And so I took that idea to the White House Communications meeting at 8:30 in the morning. And so I pitched it, and I pitched the idea of ‘Barney Cam’ to the office. Everybody gets a chance to talk, right? And so I pitched that idea of ‘Barney Cam.’ ‘Well, why don't we put a video camera on the dog's head?’ And then, and I pitched the idea in that meeting.
And there's like, 30 people in the meeting, and it went completely quiet. Everybody's looking at me like I had just grown another head. I mean, it was the most uncomfortable silence ever. And then Ari Fleischer said, after five seconds, Ari Fleischer said, ‘That is awesome.’ And then everybody was like, ‘Oh yeah, that's a good idea.’ ‘Oh yeah, that's great.’ Ari saved it. Ari opened the door for it.
So we, we filmed Barney Cam, which was just Barney running through the White House and looking at all the decorations. And it broke the White House servers. We had some, it was the top news. You know, they debuted it on - Mrs. Bush debuted Barney Cam at the Children's where she, instead of reading a book to the Children's Hospital, she debuted Barney Cam and it was on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, they all broadcast it live, right?
And I can remember, because it was dumb, it was just Barney walking through the house and the whole thing, and Wolf Blitzer said on CNN, ‘I can't believe we're airing this,’ and I'm nodding in agreement. I can't believe it either. It was huge. But so, it was just a lot.
You know, I had more fun at the White House. After I left, I was there for four years, it really cracked down. And there, there are no fun things on the White House website anymore. But for four years, three years, I mean, it was really fun. We got - it was wacky. I remember the, you know, the woman I was dating at the time said, ‘You're treating the White House website like it's your personal playground.’ And I was! They let me do anything. Wendy, it was fantastic.
One quick thing. So when we did ‘Barney Cam 2, Barney Reloaded,’ The director of communications for the White House that time was named Dan Bartlett. Dan came to me and he said, ‘Listen, we’ve got the Iraq war going on. I know you want the president to be a part of Barney Cam 2, but he's not going to do it. I'm not asking him.’
So it snowed like two weeks before Christmas, it snowed on a Friday night. I get a call in the morning from the president's personal secretary, and she said - the White House operator called, and she said, ‘Mr. Orr, Ashley Estes on the phone for you.’ I pick up the phone. I go, ‘Ashley, what’d I do wrong?’ Because I'm thinking, I am in trouble. And she said, ‘Nothing. The President wants to do Barney Cam.’ And I'm going, holy cow.
So I drive in, and we film ‘Barney Cam 2, Barney Reloaded,’ which was a surreal experience. It was unbelievable. Because the President's talking to me, I'm briefing the President. And he said, ‘Okay, uh, what are we doing here?’ And I said, ‘Mr. President, here's your motivation. Barney's in charge of putting up the decorations, but he doesn't want to, so you got to tell him to get to work.’ And he goes, ‘I can do that. I can do that.’
And got it all on tape. It's crazy. So after we get done, I call Dan Bartlett up and I go, ‘Dan, we just got done filming Barney Cam 2, with the President, but I didn't call him. The President called me.’ And so that was, you know, we really had fun at the White House during that time.
I went to work for Arnold Schwarzenegger right after the White House. I was asked to do the same thing. And so we had fun out at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s place, that was a great experience. But I wanted to get back into journalism, because that was my background.
I had a friend who was the editor of the Christian Science Monitor in Boston. He asked me if I would come out there and help them transform their operation into a digital only, or a digital first operation. So that was my job for three years, turning this very well respected journalistic enterprise into a digital first.
And so I worked with John Ellement, the former managing editor of The Boston Globe, to do that. We did that together. And it was just great. It was a wonderful experience, working with John and everybody there.
And there were articles written about what the Christian Science Monitor was doing digitally. It caught the eye of the editor of the Los Angeles Times, Russ Stanton, who reached out to me via a mutual friend, and said, ‘Hey, could you do the same for us at the LA Times?’ And so I went out to the Los Angeles Times.
And the way it's structured is the editor is here, and then there are two managing editors. I was a managing editor for digital, and Mark Duvoisin was the managing editor for print. And so we did our thing, and was able to really help the LA Times move into a more digital first platform. And they really were, they were - the LA Times, I think, was leading the way in how we covered real time news.
It was a great operation, really good people. And I just think we were that, you know, the whole switch -
Wendy, it’s difficult when you go from a print mindset to a digital mindset, because when something happens, you have to write about it, then you can't wait for a 5:30 deadline or an 8pm deadline. You have to go now. And so what we did is we really focused on blogs at the time, which were just really like real time reporting and then we got into video. And how are we going to present our video product?
And that's how I met Mitch Semel, former executive producer of Letterman, Conan. He was the CBS, CNN. He was the general manager of The Onion back when it was funny. He started Huff Post live.
But we really advanced our video product with Mitch. And then, of course, we brought Mitch in here at Cowboy State daily too.
Wendy Corr:What a gift.
Jimmy Orr:Yeah, to launch your podcast, The Roundup, to launch our video news broadcast every morning, and then, of course, Jake's radio show. What's funny about Mitch was, he was the one that took Howard Stern from a radio show to a video show. He directed that. Mitch directed that. And so Mitch did the same for us.
I mean, to be able to have the resources of a Mitch Semel at Cowboy State daily has been unbelievable. There's no one better than Mitch, and you know, the fact that we were able to get him here, he's a good guy. Great guy. Looks like Seinfeld, and we're going to be partnering with him in the future, too.
Wendy Corr:
Because we only have a few minutes left, Jimmy, let's transition to, how do you take all of this experience that you have had in the political world, in the digital world, in the broadcast and journalism world, how do you get that and say, ‘I want to launch from scratch, a platform, a news platform, that's never been done before.’
Jimmy Orr:
Well, so Annaliese Wiederspahn, long time - I've known Annaliese forever. And Anneliese is the daughter of Cynthia Lummis. Anneliese in 2018 asked me if I missed- I had moved out here to launch a digital sports show with Woody Page of ESPN’s around the horn, and Les Shapiro of Channel Four in Denver.
But it, you know, like any digital enterprise, sometimes they work, sometimes they didn't work. This one didn't work. It lasted for about a year. It was fun. So Annaliese asked me how much I missed the LA Times. And I missed it a lot, because it was such a great job, and working with great people, and I risked that great job to launch this digital startup in Denver. It didn't work.
And so I told her I really missed journalism. And so in 2019 she came back to me and she said, ‘Well, what if you and I start a Wyoming based operation, news operation, together.’ And I said, ‘If you can find the funding.’ She was able to find the funding, this startup money through Foster Friess, the former gubernatorial candidate, and, of course, his background was in finance, the late Foster Friess, and so she was able to find startup money.
And she said, ‘All right, so we've got this. What do we do first?’ And I said, ‘Well, we've got to bring on Jim Angell,’ who was a former Wyoming Associated Press bureau chief and the head of the Wyoming Press Association. I said, ‘We need to do that for two reasons. One, because there's nobody better, and two, it's instant credibility.’
So we talked to Jim, and Jim said that - we were at Starbucks - and Jim said, ‘I just retired from the Wyoming Press Association!’ And so like The Godfather, we brought him back in, and he said, ‘But we need editorial freedom.’ And so that meant that, Foster Friess, if he were to give us startup money, no strings attached. He couldn't say, ‘You write about this, or you write about this,’ or anything like that.
We were able to get that. We were able to get that in writing. We had complete editorial freedom. So Jim Angell, Anneliese Wiederspahn and I, and then we tapped in with Bob Giha, longtime TV reporter, Mike McCrimmon, long time videographer. We started this business together.
It's far different, not even close to what it is right now. Six months later, you joined us. Bill Sniffin joined us, and we did this thing for, you know, it was a month to month endeavor. We all had different jobs. We were just doing this for the love of journalism. But it was nothing like it is today.
And then Wayne Hughes spotted Cowboy State Daily, and he thought there was promise to it, but he knew that, you know, the way we were operating wasn't sustainable. We had to totally change everything. And so, we went into our third incarnation of Cowboy State Daily, which is when he took over, and that's when we turned into a real news organization, with real journalists, and we turned into what we do today and what we do today.
Wendy, when you look at the team that we have, it's unbelievable.
Wendy Corr:
I have to, when I'm reading the stories every day. I'm thinking, how is it that we have such talent and such dedication and such just really impressive journalists, not just writers, but journalists. But journalists that tell stories that are engaging, and journalists that are willing to call up the victim of a crime and say, can you tell me your story? And the victims say, ‘Okay.’
I mean, how is it that we're able to get those kinds of journalists in Wyoming, and tapping into that talent pool? You've been able to put that together.
Jimmy Orr:
Yeah. Well, we've got really good people, and we've got really good journalists. And they're not activists, they're journalists. They don't tell you how you should think. They report. This is what happened, and that's really important for us.
Wayne has said from the very beginning, we don't put our thumb on the scale - what we do is we tell the stories, and so we have a team of very experienced journalists, not activists, who tell the stories. And our turnover rate has been very, very low. We've been able to keep people for a long time.
You know, we're coming up on our third year, and under the latest version of Cowboy State Daily, Greg Johnson is our Managing Editor. And Greg is a workhorse, a tireless workhorse. He’s unbelievable, the amount of time, dedication that he puts into this. So you know, his day ends about 8pm, and then he's on with Jake on our morning show at 6:10, every morning. That really, the hours that he puts in as a managing editor. And then, of course, he edits his stories that we have over the weekend.
So it starts with Greg, and then Leo Wolfson was our first hire in the new Cowboy State Daily. He is our political reporter, and so he's been covering politics almost for three years solid for us right now. And then, who was right after? Clair? Right after Leo? Yeah, it was Clair.
You know, Cale Case, the senator from Lander, told us about Clair probably four years ago. He said, You got to pick up Clair McFarland. She is the best, but Clair was very happy at the Riverton Ranger until there was a change in ownership, and then so we were able to lure her over. And Clair is crime and courts, but also an outstanding features writer as well. She also has a mommy column, which is very popular.
And then Mark Heinz, who's our outdoors reporter, who is such a good writer, but also really good reporter, has been around for a long time. You worked with him up in Cody?
Wendy Corr:
Yes, and Leo as well, yeah.
Jimmy Orr:
Renee Jean, who is our business and tourism reporter, a long time, veteran reporter. Again, we're talking about, Wendy, people that have 10, 20, 30 years of journalism experience, so real pros who, again, are journalists. ‘Here is what happened.’
And then we have a great freelance staff as well. We just have a really good, solid team of people. Jackie Dorothy just joined us. She's fantastic. Everybody talked to us about Jackie. Andrew Rossi, who you worked with. Andrew Rossi is on our team.
Wendy Corr:
We’ve got Dale Killingbeck. I mean, the people that we have been able to gather into our fold. We've got a new editor now, as well, that was added to the editorial staff with Justin George.
Jimmy Orr:
Yeah, Justin George, who comes from the Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun and the Tampa Bay Tribune, and his focus is on quality and on story development and reporter development.
We got Dale from Grand Rapids. You know, he's been in the business for over 30 years, and he's a great reporter. Experienced. Great writer. So it's just this mix of really good reporters. And as you know Wendy, we meet every morning at 8:30, that's when we have the budget meeting. Jake Nichols, we started that radio show with him about a month and a half ago.
Wendy Corr:
Which is, on one hand, awesome, and on the other hand, we lost his really amazing journalistic style with the features that he did, right?
Jimmy Orr:
But he promises us he's going to be able to go back and write some stories for us once we're comfortable with the radio product. And so Jake's on every morning from 6am to 10am, and the thought is, we're going to make it available to syndicate. So if any radio station in Wyoming wants to pick it up, it's 100% radio, Wyoming focused. That's what our focus is. It's on Wyoming.
And so we'll be able to offer that. And yeah, so, you know, we branched off in a lot of areas. We've done a lot of video. We just picked up Reilly Strand.
Wendy Corr:
Holy cow, yeah, saved my life by hiring Reilly.
Jimmy Orr:
He helps you out with the video, and he's a great videographer, and he's a great editor, too. And so we've, we've got this team, and then Wendy, you got to talk about the columnists.
So we got Bill Sniffin, who's been in Wyoming journalism for 50 years. 5-0, more than 50. We've got Joan Barron, who has covered Wyoming since 1970, right now. We've got Rod Miller, Rod Miller, who has been a prolific writer for decades and a very well read columnist, and not afraid to mix things up.
And then we've got Dave Simpson. Dave Simpson was the state editor for the Casper Star for years, and so he's been in journalism for 40 plus years. So he's on Monday, and on Tuesday is Candy Moulton. Candy Moulton wrote for the Casper star for 25 years, an author and a writer, and she also edits a section of our site called the American West.
Wednesday is Tom Lubnau. Tom Lubnau, the former Speaker of the House in the Wyoming State Legislature, an attorney. We have Sally Ann Shermer. Sally Ann Shermer worked for the Casper star for 35 years as a writer and a columnist, and she writes for us a lot of University of Wyoming stuff. She's a die hard. You know, her dad was a coach in college football and in the NFL, and she knows football like like nobody else.
We've got Jonathan Lange and Dennis Sun on Saturdays, on Sundays, we've got Bill, Joan, Rod and Cassie, so our columnist stable is just unbelievable. The experience, the direct Wyoming experience that they have, is just incredible.
Wendy Corr:
And the varied viewpoints and the varied topics, and everything from Claire's column about being a mom to Sally Ann to - we've got a lot of politics, but we have just Wyoming observations and life observations. And I think that there's something so interesting about that.
We even have, and that's one of the things that I love about Cowboy State Daily, is we are truly Wyoming's newspaper. We have everything, including the funnies, because with our newsletter, when you're a newsletter subscriber, you've got the Daily Darwin, and Jimmy, you curate those.
Jimmy Orr:
I’m glad you brought that up. So we've got the newsletter, 83,000 subscribers, and the newsletter is actually what attracted Wayne to Cowboy State daily in the first place? And so, we view the newsletter as the morning newspaper, and we treat it as such. And so that's where we have Don Day. We have the Wyoming sunrise. We have your video newscast. We've got a link to Jake’s morning radio show.
Then what we pledge is to have at least 10 original stories per day, at least on Cowboy State Daily. And sometimes it's 14, sometimes it's 15 - occasionally, if we're short staffed, because it's something, we'll have nine, but we'll always shoot for 10.
And it's all original content. We don't use wire copy. We don't use copy from anybody else. It's all original Cowboy State Daily. That is our pledge, and it's important that we do that. Everything we write.
And then we have our columnists, and then we have the farm, Ag Report. We have cartoons and opinion. And it's important that our cartoons - our cartoons are slanted, but that's opinion. In an opinion, you can have that. In opinion, that's what we do. Some people complain about the cartoons, they always have.
Then there's the comic section, what we think of as a comic section, and that's the wacky videos that we have. The wacky, the funny videos, or whatever. The reason we do that is that's our version of the comics. And so we add that every single morning. And so when people ask about that, we say, well, you know, your regular newspaper has that too, and that's what we do.
And so, so anyway, that's, that's, you know, we have, we have a few products. We have our website, we have our newsletter, which is the most powerful medium. 83,000 subscribers. We’re on social media at about 152,000 followers on Facebook right now. What else do we have? We have a radio show. We have our news show.
Wendy Corr:
We've got our news on radio stations across the state. So that's been really fun to have those relationships, to create those relationships.
Jimmy Orr:
Your newscast is on about 30 radio stations, and we, I think we just signed someone else up, right?
Wendy Corr:
We did, yep, we've got the brand new Pinedale station. So we're glad to have Blake Coble on board now with the rest of them.
Jimmy, we've got so much going on here, but there's always something new in the works, and so we are way over time. So we're gonna, we're gonna make this short and sweet. What do you see next for Cowboy State daily?
Jimmy Orr:
Well, you know, we're gonna continue to - what's really important is to think about where our readers are, and what they want to read. You know, what makes us different than some news organizations, is, we don't have an official opinion of the newspaper. We don't write an editorial.
And so, you know, the couple of other people, Wendy, that we need to mention before this is done, we need to mention Todd Titus. Todd is our head of advertising, who's doing such a wonderful job. And really, he is - we know this, because we did a nationwide search for a head of advertising, and they said the best person is in your backyard. And Todd was working in Casper, and he's been unbelievable.
But another person is Brad Erickson. Brad Erickson keeps us afloat. Our traffic is through the roof, and we get these spikes that are monstrous, and he keeps our site up, and he is tireless. He is our, our tech guy, and he's the best there is.
Abby Roich helps out Todd.
Wendy Corr:
And she knows everybody in the state, I swear
Jimmy Orr:
She knows everybody in the state, and she is great on Jake's show. And so it's just a, really, we have an unbelievable staff and a great team. And I think people see that, you know, in our 8:30 meeting, which is a lot of fun.
And so we're just really blessed to have the people that we are having. And you know, the common goal is, we all love Wyoming. And as Bill Sniffin used to say, and I like this, ‘Do we have a bias? Yes, we do, and that is, we are pro-Wyoming.’
And there are other news organizations that always point out, well, Wyoming is, you know, that - I won't get into it, but we are pro-Wyoming. We love Wyoming. We're a glass half full. And you know, we're really grateful to be in this wonderful state. And I know you feel that way, and as a native, I feel that way.
So anyway, that's what we're here doing, is, we're all grateful to be on on board at Cowboy State Daily.
Wendy Corr:
We love it. Jimmy, this has been such an awesome conversation. The time has flown by, and I'm just sorry that we have to cut off because I know you've got so many more stories, and so many more people.
But I do want to say thank you, Jimmy for the vision that you had with Annaliese and being able to direct us to where we are today - and we've just got so many years ahead of us, bringing the great stories and really showcasing the best of Wyoming in all its aspects.
So thank you Jimmy. Thank you folks for tuning into The Roundup today. Thank you for all of your support. If you have enjoyed this, please let us know! If you’ve got ideas for other people who aren't as long winded as Jimmy, let me know, so that we can go ahead and get them on and tell their story as well.
Don't forget the Wyoming Business Alliance ‘Business From the Basement’ podcast. Check them out. If you're a Wyoming business person, they've got lots of great, great resources for you there.
Jimmy, thank you for affording me the opportunity to do the things that I do, and to meet the people that I have in this job. This has just been a gift, and I'm grateful, and thanks for bringing this to Wyoming as well.
Jimmy Orr:
And thanks to you, Wendy, for everything that you do. And the big thanks goes to Wayne for making this all happen.
Wendy Corr:
Amen. Thank you. Thanks folks for tuning in. Have a wonderful day. Have a wonderful week. We'll see you next week.
