Episode Details

Wendy Corr:

Well, hey there, folks, welcome to The Roundup. We're a Cowboy State Daily podcast, and we focus on interesting people that are connected to the Cowboy State. And I say connected, because our guest today has a great connection to the Cowboy State. If you hear the names, say, "Family Ties," or "Cheers," or "Golden Girls," these are sitcoms, these are beloved television shows that so many of us watched religiously every week. We are talking today to one of the gentlemen that made those shows happen - those shows and their connection to the Cowboy State is through this guy right here. Mitch Semel. And what a unexpected gift Mitch has been - to Cowboy State Daily, and to me, as we are developing our video products, Mitch has been an invaluable source of information. And as we're talking to Mitch - who by the way, our connection with Mitch is Jimmy Orr who is our editor at Cowboy State Daily and is really, in so many ways, responsible for Cowboy State Daily as a whole. But Mitch and Jimmy go way back. And Mitch, I am going to ask you a little bit about Jimmy Orr and how you two met, because that's a whole different story. But folks, I want you to get to know Mitch Semel. you might not recognize his name, but you know his work. And so, Mitch, hello! Welcome to Cowboy State Daily's "The Roundup!"

Mitch Semel:

Thank you, always good to talk to you.

Wendy Corr:

And we have been blessed, Mitch, you and I have been able to kind of get to know each other over the past month or so because, as I said, we're developing more and more video products for Cowboy State Daily. And, Mitch, you and Jimmy go way back to the LA Times, and the time that you were there. Tell us real quickly about your connection to the Cowboy State and to Jimmy Orr.

Mitch Semel:

Sure, sure. So Jimmy, among many cool things that he's done, was a very senior editor at the LA Times. And this goes back to the period somewhat early on, when we all in news and media were trying to figure out, 'What's the new version of a newspaper?' You know, I'm old enough at least, you not quite so much, to remember when a newspaper was a newspaper, right? It was printed on paper, it was delivered or you bought it. Right?

Wendy Corr:

It was THE news, it was either that or the radio, and if you wanted in depth, you had to go to the newspaper.

Mitch Semel:

Exactly. And funny enough that you bring up radio, because part of it - and you're living proof of this - is that now newspapers are radio, and newspapers are TV, right? As evidenced by what we're doing right now. So Jimmy, among other things, was charged with, then, figuring out what was the LA Times going to be as people were moving away from reading it - or reading it as paper, right?

And so, they had already started doing some video. Jimmy knew my work from the Huffington Post, where we had done basically the modern version of a cable network off of a digital news platform, the HuffPost, we did something called HuffPost Live that he liked a lot. He tracked me down and asked if I could help with the LA Times. We had a lot of fun - it was, this is now probably 15 or more years ago, and that was obviously one of the many things that Jimmy brought to bear when he had the idea for what became Cowboy State Daily.

And the fact that you're doing your daily newscast, and these longer form podcasts, is just an ongoing outgrowth of that. So I was thrilled when he showed me the site. Even as a non-Wyoming person, I was immediately interested, and it's gotten me more interested than ever in Wyoming stories, but also in what it means for, I think of as the present and the future of news.

Wendy Corr:

So Mitch, you and Ji