Frank J. Jordan, former broadcast journalist for NBC News and journalism professor, died of natural causes at his home in New York City on Sept. 20. He was 83 years old.
Mr. Jordan worked for NBC News for more than two decades. He was Bureau Chief in Washington, D.C. from 1968 through 1976, spanning the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Mr. Jordan served as executive producer of NBC’s national news coverage for most of the major national events of the time, from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, to the conclusion of the Viet Nam War, to President Nixon’s historic overtures to China and Russia, through the Constitutional confrontation arising from the Watergate scandal and President Nixon’s eventual resignation. During the 1960s and 1970s, Mr. Jordan was also in charge of NBC’s election coverage, representing the network at the Republican and Democratic presidential nominating conventions and directing election night coverage. Mr. Jordan helped pioneer the network’s use of national exit polling to predict election results.
In 1979, after retiring from NBC, Mr. Jordan became the Dean of the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C., revamping the curriculum to help prepare journalism students for the new technologies revolutionizing news gathering and reporting. His particular passion, and favorite subject to teach, was the First Amendment and the importance of news media in American society. In 1986, a long-time affinity and affection for the U.S. Virgin Islands led Mr. Jordan to become the first Dean of the newly formed School of Journalism at the University of the Virgin Islands on St Thomas. For years after retiring from that position, he continued to contribute articles and columns to the local newspaper and to record commentaries for local radio stations, often lambasting local government inefficiencies and injustices. In 1992, Mr. Jordan was appointed to the U.S.V.I. Territorial Status Commission, which led the public debate on the 1993 referendum concerning whether the islands should seek statehood, remain a territory or declare independence. (Mr. Jordan quietly favored independence, but the status quo won).
Frank J. Jordan was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on May 21, 1927 (or, as he liked to remind people, on the day Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris after his solo flight across the Atlantic). The son of a radio announcer for the-then United Press Radio Network, Mr. Jordan survived the 1936 Johnstown Flood on the second story of his home with his mother and younger sister.
Upon graduation from high school in 1944, Mr. Jordan enlisted in the Army. After specialized studies at the University of Minnesota trained him to be a crack Japanese interpreter, the Army promptly assigned him to Italy, where most of the fighting had ceased. It was in Italy, however, that he began his journalism career as a 17-year-old writer for The Stars and Stripes.
Upon returning home, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1949 and a Masters Degree in Journalism at Columbia University in New York City in 1950. He then joined United Press International and was sent to Southeast Asia to report on combat operations during the Korean War, as well as events in Japan and the newly emerging nation of Indonesia.
Early on in his tenure with NBC News, Mr. Jordan was based in Chicago and produced a wide variety of stories for the network, including on-scene coverage of school desegregation milestones in the South. After moving to Washington, D.C., he also earned a law degree from American University. He was a member of the White House Correspondents Association and the District of Columbia Press Association. Mr. Jordan’s career in journalism spanned the globe, and later in life he continued to be an avid traveler, visiting many far-flung countries in recent years.
His wife, the former Patricia Clifford, died in 1990. A younger sister, Terri Jordan of San Jose, California, also predeceased him. Mr. Jordan is survived by his sister, Nancy Jordan Berriman of Wayne, Pennsylvania; his son, F. Daniel Jordan of New York City, and his daughter, Mary Lou Jordan of Cambridge, Massachusetts; three grandsons: Patrick and Simon Jordan, and Nathan Harris; and six nieces and nephews.
