Oral History Interviews

Interview: Cate Barron

Date of Interview: Nov. 16, 2020
Place of Interview: Hampden Township, Pennsylvania
Interviewer: Ford Risley

Biographical Summary
Cate Barron was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., with a major in English. She worked as the news director at WMRF-FM in Lewistown. After three years at the station, she joined the Lewistown Sentinel as a reporter. In 1985, she moved to the Patriot in Harrisburg as an editor in the Lebanon bureau. (The Patriot merged with the Evening News in 1996 to become the Patriot-News.) During the next 25 years, she served as an assistant city editor, Sunday editor, assignment editor and managing editor. In 2012, she became editor of the Patriot-News, and in 2019 she was named president of the PA Media Group.

Interview Highlights
Barron speaks about her family and education; about her first job in journalism at WMRF-FM; about working as a reporter at the Lewistown Sentinel; about the various positions she held at the Harriburg Patriot and later the Patriot-News; about important stories the newspaper covered, including the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal when she was managing editor; about reporter Sarah Ganim winning the Pulitzer Prize for her reporting of the scandal; about the impact of online news and the evolution of PennLive.com; about the role of the newspaper in Harrisburg and the state; and about becoming president of the PA Media Group.

Complete Interview Cate Barron