Date of Interview: June 17, 2026
Place of Interview: Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Interviewer: David S. Joachim
Biographical Summary
Chip Minemyer was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, and grew up mainly in nearby Julian. He graduated from Penn State University with a major in media studies. He started out covering Penn State athletics for the Centre Daily Times, then became a sports copy editor for the Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown. After working his way up to news editor, he rejoined the Centre Daily Times as copy desk chief, city editor and then associate editor. Later, he returned to the Tribune-Democrat, rising to executive editor and then publisher. CNHI, the newspaper chain and owner of the Tribune-Democrat, later added the Daily Item of Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and the Cumberland Times-News in Maryland to his executive portfolio.
Interview Highlights
Chip Minemyer speaks about his family, including a daughter who’s a journalist; about a newspaper career that took him from Bellefonte to Johnstown and then to each a second time; about how studying media theory instead of journalism at Penn State paved the way for newsroom leadership roles; about covering 9/11 and its aftermath, the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse trial and the COVID outbreak; about teaching news writing at Penn State; about reimagining the economics of a 170-year-old local newspaper as publisher; about the role of book publishing in his business; and about overseeing multiple newspapers at the same time.