Germond was born in Boston, Massachusetts, an only child, and raised in a middle-class household in Boston and Trenton, New Jersey. When he was 13, his family moved to Mississippi, and then to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Germond finished high school. After attending Louisiana State University for one semester, he served in the U.S. Army in 1946–47, returning to college on the GI bill and then graduating from the University of Missouri with degrees in journalism and history.

He began his career working for Gannett’s Rochester Times-Union in 1961. He moved to the Washington Star in 1974, became a syndicated columnist and national editor, and went on to The Baltimore Sun when the Star folded. He began to appear on Meet the Press in 1972, the Today Show in 1980, and the NBC and PBS program The McLaughlin Group from its inception in 1981.  A fixture on The McLaughlin Group for 15 years before abruptly resigning, he later appeared on CNN, and appeared for a time on the PBS program Inside Washington. In 2011 he wrote several pieces on the 2012 Presidential election for The Daily Beast, an online-only publication.

Germond and his first wife, Barbara Wipple–a fellow student at the University of Missouri–were married shortly after he graduated in 1951. They had two daughters, Mandy and Jessica.  In 1984, Germond met Democratic party operative and political activist Alice Travis. Germond and Barbara subsequently divorced, and Germond married Travis in 1988. She had two children from a prior marriage, musician Abby Travis and film maker Dave Travis, and is the Secretary Emeritus of the Democratic National Committee.  Germond died at his home on August 14, 2013, aged 85.