Corri Hess wanted to be Barbara Walters.
As a kid, she was fascinated by the longtime ABC News correspondent.
By the time Corri went to college at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, she realized television wasn’t for her. But she never wavered in her commitment to journalism.
“It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do,” Corri said. “Even after all these years, I love it. I like that every day is different, and that we always get to learn new things.”
Over the last two and half decades, Corri has been learning new things while ping-ponging across the country. She’s worked at newspapers in North Carolina, Texas, Illinois and here in Wisconsin. After making the transition to public radio, Corri went back to print for a stint reporting at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Now, she’s back at WPR, where she relishes incorporating sound into her stories.
“I just really missed public radio,” Hess said. “It’s one thing to write somebody’s quote, but getting to hear their voice … and getting to hear somebody’s emotion and hearing them tell their own story is just something that I didn’t understand all my years in print.”
Corri lives in Milwaukee, where she’s raising her teen daughter. She’s an avid user of the Milwaukee Public Library, and can be spotted at exercise classes around town.
Corri spent years as a business reporter, before shifting to politics. She sees her current beat — education — as a mixture of those two subjects. Schools can’t function without money and there’s a political dimension to the education system, too.
But often the most important voices in Corri’s stories are the people on the ground. She loves hearing from teachers, parents and kids.
“You also get to really cover humans, you know?”
– Sarah Lehr, state government reporter
