Cowboy State Daily's Wendy Corr Takes Her Newscast On The Road

From the time I was a little girl, all I wanted to do was sing. When I was four, my aunt Karen recorded me belting out Tanya Tucker’s “Delta Dawn.”

But life takes us in interesting directions, and I have found myself on a career path in broadcast news that I never would have anticipated. 

When I was a teenager, I dreamed of bright lights and world tours.

The twist is, I now have both. 

And because I am a professional singer, touring the country with Dan Miller’s Cowboy Music Revue, as well as being the broadcast media director for Cowboy State Daily, I have to find a way to do both jobs.

However, there’s quite a bit of coordination that has to take place in order to produce a video newscast while on the road.

Balancing Both Worlds

I was in my late 30s when my dream of being a professional singer was realized - that’s when I was hired by Dan Miller to play bass and sing in his “Cowboy Music Revue” in Cody. So with every job I’ve held since 2008 (from radio news director, to restaurant manager, to television reporter), I’ve made sure my day job would allow me the flexibility to play music - and that often includes road touring.

When I was just a freelance journalist for Cowboy State Daily, interviewing contacts while driving down the road was simple, so long as I had cell service. Writing a story on my laptop was also completely do-able, as long as someone else (Dan) was doing the driving.

But in 2023, my role at Cowboy State Daily became more intensive. In July, we launched Cowboy State Daily Radio News, which turned into Cowboy State Daily Video News. 

And that complicated matters.

Day-to-Day Coordination

Beginning around 3:00 every afternoon, an outline of the newscast can start to take shape, as reporters submit stories they’ve worked on throughout the day. That’s when I begin my text strings.

“Clair, when would be a good time to zoom today?”

“Hey, Mark - when would be the best time to talk about your stories?”

“Renee, do you have stories to zoom about this afternoon?”

When I’m at home, doing video interviews with all our reporters via the Zoom platform is easy to coordinate. 

But when I’m on the road, as I have been this week, cell service can be a bit sketchy. That’s when I’m beyond grateful that we hired Reilly Strand as our videographer and newscast editor.

“Hey, Reilly, I’m in eastern Colorado and the cell service is awful - could you zoom with Andrew this afternoon?”

Reilly and I can share video and audio files using the Vimeo website and a program called WeTransfer - so as soon as he or I complete an interview, we upload the files to a central location.

In between reporter interviews, I take the stories that they’ve written and edit them down to newscast-sized versions to create the script that I’ll use to record.

Timing

It takes more than just a camera and a microphone to put together a video newscast. And when I’m on the road, the process is even more complicated.

First, we have to time out where we’re going to stop. On Monday afternoon, we were driving through eastern Colorado, returning from a show in Kansas. Our hope was to reach Cheyenne in time for me to set up my gear to record, but delays occurred - so we had to find a hotel farther south.

A few internet searches and one phone call yielded us a great deal at a Staybridge Suites in north Denver, where we’d arrive by about 6:45 p.m. That would give me enough time to email the final script to Executive Editor Jimmy Orr and start unpacking my camera and other gear.

Before I do my tech setup, I sync my Jimmy-approved script to my teleprompter app on my iPad (spoiler alert - I don’t have all these stories memorized!)

Oh, and one other task that print journalists and radio broadcasters DON’T have to deal with - I have to tame my often unruly curls and re-do my makeup. 

Setup

Now, when I’m at home, I have everything set up right where it should be - no troubleshooting, no guesswork. But on the road, each hotel room is different, so I begin working on logistics as soon as I walk in the room.

First, I have to identify a spot in the hotel room that will give my broadcast a neutral background. Sometimes that means doing some creative re-arranging of the furniture.

Then I have to re-purpose tables, chairs and lamps in the room. A chair for me; a low table to set my Shure microphone on, but that’s also large enough to hold my MacBook. If the chair-to-table levels don’t work as they are, I either have to set the microphone on something to raise it up, or I have to sit on extra padding to raise myself up high enough that the mic doesn’t hide my chin.

I recently purchased a portable stand that is big enough to set my Sony camera on, that will also hold my iPad, onto which I’ve installed a teleprompter app. I place that in front of my table and chair - but I need enough space in the hotel room to set the stand back far enough, so viewers can’t tell that I’m looking PAST the camera to the words on the screen.

Then, lighting. I carry with me a large ring light on a collapsible stand, which I set up behind the camera and slightly to the side. But I also need ambient light, so I have to turn on a floor or desk lamp in the room.

Recording

Time to check the setup - I turn on the camera, setting the focus on my microphone. Then I sit down at the computer, turning on the Zoom app, which I use as a monitor. Is the focus right? Do I need to move myself, the camera, the light? Is the mic too high? Is my hair sticking out at strange angles?

Stand up, go to the camera, sit back down. Re-check. Repeat. Make sure the computer is reading my microphone input.

Finally, everything is set, and I can hit “record” on my camera; “record” on my Adobe Audition program, and “record” on my Zoom program.

Smile, relax, breathe. Start talking.

“It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming…”

Post-Production

Have I mentioned how much easier life is with an assistant?

Before we brought on the amazing videographer Reilly Strand in August, I would now be seeking out photos and videos to use in the video newscast. Then I’d be opening my video editing program and importing all the various assets - audio, video, still images, logos, advertisements - and preparing to weave all those elements into the final product.

But we have Reilly. So I get to hand off all of those tasks to him, and he will work on that for the next couple of hours, and create the final product that will appear in our daily newsletter at 5:15 a.m. tomorrow.

Starlink

Traveling through Wyoming, as anyone who has ever done so, is a game of hit-or-miss when it comes to cell service. But in my line of work, I need reliable internet.

That Elon Musk guy changed my life.

The files I create, and that Reilly and I work with, are HUGE. Every night, I need to send a high-definition video file over the internet so Reilly can use it as the basis for our roughly 10-minute newscast. For those in the know, the file is between 3.5 GB and 4 GB. That’s a LOT of data - and if you don’t have high speed internet, there’s no way that file will make it to its destination in under 3 hours.

Enter Starlink, the satellite internet service Musk founded/created.

Before Starlink, I’d have to pray that the hotel we picked for the night had decent WIFI, so I could upload my files in a timely manner. 

But a couple of months ago I ordered, essentially, Starlink-to-go. It takes about 20 minutes from the time I pull the equipment out of the box to the time I have service. And it’s SPEEDY.  Slow WIFI at the hotel? No problem - go out to the truck, point the Starlink dish to the north, and away we go!

Once Reilly receives the files, the responsibility for video newscast content creation is in his hands.

However, my work isn’t done for the night. 

Radio

When we first decided to launch Cowboy State Daily’s broadcast wing, we offered our radio newscasts to any Wyoming radio station that wanted to carry it, completely free. 27 radio stations took us up on that offer - so I produce four unique radio newscasts every day, in addition to our video newscast.

Once I’ve handed all the video elements off to Reilly and update our website, I get to work modifying the scripts I just used, so they work within the time constraints of radio newscasts. Each of the two “full” newscasts must be precisely five minutes, and each of the two “short” newscasts must be precisely two minutes.

So once my radio scripts are created, I record (and when I’m on the road, hope the people in the next hotel room stay quiet), then edit in reporter soundbites and music beds to complete the newscast. Those files all get uploaded to a file server, to which all our partner radio stations have access.

Late Nights

By the time my radio broadcasts are complete, Reilly is almost done putting together the video newscast. He sends me the link to the finished product - I review it, applaud his work, then link the video to our website and our YouTube channel, before signing off for the night.

Finally, my workday is done. If all the stars align, and we’re able to get to all our reporters quickly, and they are all able to get their stories in quickly, we might be done with our work by 10 p.m. More often, it’s around 11:30 or so when we each close our computers down in our respective locations.

On the road, when you’re sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings, good sleep is hard to get sometimes. And when you’ve been up since 7 a.m., and on the road since 8:00, those late nights add up.

In other words, coffee is my friend.

Rise, Road, Repeat

Being a traveling musician is my dream, and I am living it.

Being a broadcast journalist has been an unexpected gift, a career that I never thought I’d find myself in, and that I absolutely love.

Putting the two together is doable, although it takes creativity, organization, and mad time management skills.

This past week, I recorded from the road as we returned to Wyoming from a performance in northern Kansas, followed by a gig in Pinedale Friday evening - now I’m off to Laramie for a couple of days to put on the hat of proud parent to my daughter, who is also a performer, at the University of Wyoming.

But no matter where I’m traveling, I’m connected, bringing you all the stories that our talented team of journalists have gathered from all corners of the Cowboy State.

Wendy Corr can be reached at: Wendy@CowboyStateDaily.com