‘Catalyst Sessions’ recap: Cyndi Edwards

The interviewer became the interviewee on Monday’s installment of The Catalyst Sessions. Cyndi Edwards of WFLA’s TV talk show Daytime endured (good-naturedly) a half hour of questions about her life, career and the challenges faced by producing a full hour of TV, five days a week, from home.

COVID-19 sent the team from the Tampa-based Daytime home March 18; Edwards’ co-host Danny New had barely been on the job two months. Edwards left her make-up, and her on-air wardrobe, at the Channel 8 studio. “It won’t be that long that we’re off,” she told herself. She lives in southern Hillsborough County.

Fast forward three months. “My dining Room is now Studio A for me. I’ve got my executive producer in my left ear – she’s in St. Petersburg – I’ve got Danny and myself in my right ear, he’s in South Tampa, and we all come together as one, and make it work.”

Daytime combines local lifestyle features and conversations with satellite one-on-ones with celebrities plugging their latest film, series or book.

Edwards, who’s been with Daytime for 14 years, enjoys discussing Tampa Bay nonprofit success stories and watching pre-teen ballerinas dance as much as she does talking with actors like Christian Slater or Amanda Peet (both of whom were linked into Daytime last week).

“I kind of love meeting ordinary people that are doing extraordinary things,” she said. “I think they’re the ones that are most inspiring. It’s always kind of a thrill when you interview somebody famous that you grew up watching, but honestly for the most part it’s ordinary people that kind of stick with me.”

Born in Newfoundland, Canada and raised in New Brunswick, Cyndi Edwards didn’t have that “I want to be a journalist” gleam in her eye as a youngster. “I had no plans to get into broadcasting at all,” she explained. “I went off to university, didn’t know what I wanted to do. Changed my major four times …”

Broadcasting was fifth … and it took. “I’ve always been extremely curious. And I’ve always been more of a listener than a talker. And I grew up watching the news every single day with my parents. I always had a newspaper open in front of me. So I didn’t even realize it was happening, but it was in me. Thank goodness I found out that it was in there, because I can’t imagine not doing this.”

She began her career with CBC Radio, worked her way onto TV, and found her niche.

Edwards met her husband Colin Trethewy in Pembroke, Ontario at “the smallest television station in Canada.” How small? “It was teeny-tiny. We used to have to go out with a broom and clean the (satellite) dish off if it had too much snow on it.”

Today on The Catalyst Sessions: Artist and gallery owner Chad Mize.

Streaming at 7 p.m. weekdays on the Catalyst Facebook page. All shows are archived on our YouTube page.