In this episode of Coffee with Cool People, host Chip Munn sat down with WBTW’s Trish Munn to talk about identity, reinvention, and what it takes to hold space for other people’s stories while you are still writing your own. Viewers know Trish from the evening newscast. Fewer know the person behind the desk: a photographer, a wellness nerd, a nature lover, a mom, and a woman who has rebuilt her life from the inside out.
Trish’s path to television was anything but linear. She grew up in Zion, Illinois, on the shores of Lake Michigan, the youngest in a big family. Her father, an Irish immigrant and former Catholic priest, was her hero. As a teenager she became his caregiver, shuttling between school, work, cardiac rehab, and later chemo. By 16 she had finished high school. She put herself through the University of South Carolina, won awards in broadcast journalism, and landed her first full-time job at South Carolina Public Radio. A VHS resume tape, literal tapes, brought her to WBTW in 2004, first as a one-man-band weekend reporter, then as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor, and bureau chief.
After a decade in the grind, she stepped away. What followed was a hard but formative stretch. Trish worked at the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce, led public relations at Francis Marion University, and grew a photography business from hobby to studio. More importantly, she did the interior work. She got sober. She learned how to sit with her feelings. She leaned into spirituality over labels and found practices that helped her heal. She jokes that people call her quirky. She means she is curious. Yoga, sound healing, physics, rocks, Reiki. If it helps people feel better, she wants to understand it and share it. That instinct became Wellness Wednesday segments when she returned to TV.
Coming back meant doing the job differently. The newsroom has changed. Tapes are gone. Live trucks are backpacks. Robot cameras glide where operators once stood. The audience has changed too. Reporters shoulder more hostility in the field even as they work to give voice to the voiceless. Trish’s response is equal parts craft and care. Each morning she prays, sets a boundary around what she lets in, and remembers that her job is clarity without bias. Some stories hurt, especially animal cruelty. She reads the words, does the work, and relies on a tight crew whose dark humor and solidarity make the load lighter.
The Trish viewers see on the evening news is the same one Chip knows at home, only with less time to laugh between stories. She leads with compassion, for people, animals, and the world around her, and strives to leave every space better than she found it. Family comes first, community close behind. The rest can wait. What matters most to her is integrity.
