Chip Mahaney

“Just show up.”

For years, Chip Mahaney has taught that simple phrase in classes or in one-on-one meetings with students. That phrase and the stories behind it are how Mahaney built a successful career as a journalist, leader, mentor and teacher.

On Mahaney’s second day as a first-year student at SMU in August of 1982, he wandered onto the football practice field and introduced himself to anyone who had a moment to talk. Within a couple of weeks, he had his first two bylines in The Daily Campus, and within a couple of months, he had a 40-hour-a-week job in the SMU Athletics Sports Information Department (now Public Relations).

Mahaney’s news journey, after SMU degrees in journalism and political science, has taken him from his hometown in nearby Arlington around the world and across the United States, from political conventions to major sports events to major breaking news. His personal care for the people he has met along the way has earned him the joy of having one of the largest professional networks in his industry.

Before returning to SMU in 2025 to teach, Mahaney spent 16 years at The E.W. Scripps Company, a legacy journalism company dating to 1878. In that time, he served in multiple broadcast and digital leadership roles at headquarters and as news director at Scripps’ Cincinnati hometown flagship, WCPO-TV. Before Scripps, Mahaney worked for local media organizations in Connecticut, Virginia, Oklahoma and Texas. From 1996 to 2007, he was managing editor for KDFW FOX 4 News in Dallas.

Over many years, Mahaney has served the journalism industry by teaching for organizations like The Poynter Institute, the Carole Kneeland Project, the Society for Professional Journalists, the Radio Television Digital News Association and several state broadcast associations.

He is currently a member of the Board of Governors for the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Lone Star Chapter. (NATAS produces regional and national Emmy® awards.) Mahaney served the national RTNDA board for more than a decade.

He judges industry competitions across the country, including the Edward R. Murrow Awards, Emmy® Awards, Broadcast Educators Association Awards, and Student Television Network Awards. Mahaney is a former Emmy® and Murrow winner himself, among other honors.

He is married to Susan Mahaney, a former WFAA Emmy®-winning local news executive producer. They live in North Dallas, with two dogs and two cats. They have two grown children, in Cincinnati and Seattle.