Cathleen Trigg-Jones on Acting, Journalism and Empowering Women: ‘We Can Move Mountains’ (EXCLUSIVE)
The Emmy winner also revealed what she is planning on leaving behind in 2024
Media personality, actress, philanthropist and iWoman TV owner Cathleen Trigg-Jones is ready to tell the world where she came from! In a recent raw and vulnerable interview with Woman’s World, the Emmy winner opens up about how she went from a little girl in the foster system to a media mogul recognized all around the world. She also shared who she looked up to as a little girl, how she overcame obstacles growing up and what her hope is for women in the media going forward. Keep scrolling to read her inspiring words and story.
Woman’s World: You began your career as a broadcast journalist before becoming U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden’s Press Assistant. Since then, you’ve worked for several New York media outlets. What was your time in the media like?
Cathleen Trigg-Jones: My time in the media started while I was still in college. I was an Assistant Editor at the Delaware State University newspaper, and that’s really where I realized that I had a gift for writing.
So, I switched my major from nursing to journalism and then started doing internships, because I went to a small, historically Black college that didn’t have a mass communications major, and I really wanted to learn everything there was about media. I wanted to learn television, film, radio—everything.
So what I really learned from that point on was that the foundation of everything we do as journalists starts with being able to write, tell a story through the lens of others and be a great listener.
Working for Joe Biden was a gift of an opportunity at 23 years old; aside from that, I knew pretty clearly that I wanted to stay in journalism and I wanted to be on TV. I wanted to tell stories, and I really wanted to be the voice for the voiceless and tell stories that can actually change the world.
My biggest takeaway from it is that we have a huge responsibility as the storytellers of the world to be able to tell the truth and to protect the integrity of the people that we’re telling the story about. We can actually ruin someone’s life, or we can make their greatest day through the way that we tell our stories, which is a lot of responsibility.
WW: How has the role of women in the media changed over the years?
CTJ: I graduated from college in 1992 and as a Black woman starting out in the media, it was a really difficult entry. There were not a lot of opportunities and there was not a lot of respect. So you really did have to be on your A game at all times; there was a lot of proving yourself. There were a lot of questions. Early in my career I had some journalists that I worked with who found ways to try to get under my skin by asking me things like, “What made you think you could become a TV reporter?” or “You’re only here because you’re Black, and they needed a face. They needed diversity.” I learned really early on that those were just tests and that I had to believe in myself, even when others didn’t believe in me.
I think women have established a very strong place in the media realm and all aspects of it, from being writers to reporters to correspondence to news anchors. You don’t have to prove yourself.
If one of us makes it, we all make it. So I’m really happy to see how journalism and media have evolved so that women can have a place in it. I think we’re a special breed, and we tell stories in a really special way.
WW: When you were starting out as an early career journalist, who were some people that you looked up to?
CTJ: Oprah changed my life as a young woman growing up. She was a news anchor and that made it possible for me to dream that I could do that one day.
Another really big influence was Phil Donahue. I watched Phil Donahue as a little girl. Others were watching all kinds of other TV, but I studied him. I watched how he asked questions. I watched his compassion and gift for being able to carry an interview. And I would do mock interviews myself in my room as if I had my own talk show. That really impacted my life.
WW: You have also won an Emmy for your work in the media. What was that like?
CTJ: The year that I won my Emmy, I was nominated for three Emmys, and oddly enough, I lacked a little bit of self-esteem at that time. I was very new in New York City and there was that side of me that really had to resist imposter syndrome. I had to really tell myself, “Okay, you belong here. And yes, I’m a little country. I talk a little differently from New Yorkers, but my talent is why I’m here.” But the Emmy Awards that year validated not only me but my peers in New York City as well.
I did end up winning one, but I didn’t even go to the Emmys because I just started thinking, “I’m not going to win, and it would be embarrassing.” I didn’t go, and I regret that. Still, I was watching TV, the 11 o’clock news from my bed that night, and I overheard at the very end of the show my main news anchor, Brenda Blackman, announcing. “We want to congratulate Cathleen Trigg Jones for taking home an Emmy for Best Educational Reporting.”
It was a great opportunity in my life to really be validated by my peers.
WW: Aside from journalism, you are also a very successful actress. How was your transition from news to movies, and what project was your favorite to work on?
CTJ: When I got to New York, I thought, “I’m going to be a news anchor, and I’m gonna live out my childhood dream of being an actress.” What I didn’t realize is that when you’re under contract with a network. you can’t actually just go out and start auditioning for TV shows. So even though my agent would call and say, “Hey, I’ve got, you know, this show that’s interested in you,” I would go to my TV station and they would say, “Yeah, you can’t do that,” because they didn’t want their news anchors to lack credibility by acting in a show.
So, for years, I was not allowed to do it, and then at some point I was offered my first role in Disney’s Enchanted movie. And to this day, I don’t know that I’ve ever admitted this, but I did it without permission. At that point, I had just adopted the saying, “Ask for forgiveness instead of permission.”
So I did Disney’s Enchanted, and it was the greatest movie. It’s probably my favorite because my kids and their friends watched it. I still played a reporter, so it was true to who I was, but it was an incredible opportunity.
WW: Let’s talk about your nonprofit, Trigg House. What does that organization mean to you? And what do you hope children and adults take away from it?
CTJ: Trigg House is a foundation that I started back in 2000, and it was born from my own birth story. I was left at an orphanage when I was a baby, and a military couple who became my parents adopted me just before my second birthday. They gave me their house and their name, Trigg House, and that’s why I named my foundation Trigg House, because I wanted to create a place for other young foster kids who were aging out of the system and didn’t have a place to call home.
I always felt like I didn’t know why God chose me out of the thousands of children who never get adopted. Still, somehow, he chose me to get out of that situation and end up in a great military family that gave me a strong foundation and allowed me to dream and be everything I wanted to be. It wasn’t easy, but I realized that through love, opportunity and having someone who believes in you, you can be anything. If I could come from an orphanage and go on to star in multiple movies and be an Emmy award-winning journalist, then anyone could, right?
There are close to half a million children that are in foster care, and many of them will never be adopted or even receive a foster family. They get shifted around from home to home to home. And that could have been me. So, that’s the reason that I started the foundation. And now I really focus on girls. I’m hyper-focused on helping young girls because after they get out of the system, they can quickly end up in the hands of traffickers or other uncertain futures. And I want to be that stopgap to give them a chance at success in life.
WW: What can women around the world do to rise and speak up for themselves?
CTJ: I think that the biggest thing we can do as women is come together. We have so much more in common than we have apart, and if we could find our voice together, we could literally move mountains.
I would love to see women just come together, let our hair down, open up the things we’re all going through and see what we can do to help one another. In my dream world, I feel like if I’m helping you and you become ridiculously successful, then doesn’t that make me even more successful? And then we continue with that. Instead of feeling intimidated by one another or jealous of one another, if we could all just celebrate together and celebrate each other’s accomplishments, I think the world would be a better place.
WW: As we enter 2025, what are your goals this year, and what are you leaving behind in 2024?
CTJ: What I’m leaving behind is a belief system that does not serve me. And in 2025, I’m really excited about where iWomanTV is going. We’re launching our Citizen Journalists Initiative, where we’ll teach more young women how to preserve this craft we all love and respect.
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