Frank Daniels, ex-AP chair and newspaper publisher, dies

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Former Connected Press board chair Frank A. Daniels Jr., who shepherded The Information & Observer of Raleigh by way of an period of political and financial transformation in the New South, died Thursday at age 90.

Daniels, whose household owned the North Carolina newspaper for more than a century before it was offered to McClatchy Newspapers Inc. in 1995, died at a Raleigh retirement group in which he lived, according to his son, Frank Daniels III. The son said his father died immediately after a thirty day period of declining health.

For the duration of his 26 yrs as publisher of the paper of history for condition politics and government, The N&O became a regional powerhouse for news, specially from the state’s rising Exploration Triangle location, and an on-line pioneer. Similarly, his tenure as chair of AP’s board of administrators in the mid-1990s was marked by the not-for-gain news cooperative’s technological enlargement.

Daniels’ family members enterprise embraced technological innovation in the newspaper field by acquiring one of the initially Globe Huge Net newspapers, The NandO Instances — a perform on the News & Observer name intended to differentiate it from the print product — in 1994 and Nando.internet, a business web support supplier.

Daniels joined AP’s board of administrators in 1983 and served as chair from 1992 to 1997. All through his stewardship, AP emphasised increasing its multimedia presence, launching a movie information company enterprise and developing “the Wire,” an exertion to blend audio and video clip information with text and shots.

Daniels “was an early and enthusiastic supporter of AP’s entry into online video, a significant action for the information cooperative which afterwards years have verified to be the ideal move when we built it,” Louis D. Boccardi, AP’s president and main executive officer from 1985 to 2003, said in a modern e mail.

Daniels retired as N&O publisher in early 1997, months after the newspaper gained the Pulitzer Prize for community assistance for its sequence on the environmental and overall health risks affiliated with the dealing with of hog squander produced by North Carolina’s developing pork generation field. The paper received two other Pulitzers even though he was publisher, together with a commentary prize for editor Claude Sitton in 1983.

Daniels and Sitton — acknowledged for his past civil rights reporting for The New York Moments — championed the paper’s dogged investigative protection. They have been regarded to lock horns constantly with archconservative Republican U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms on the paper’s Democratic-leaning editorial internet pages and wore the conservatives’ moniker for the paper — “The Raleigh Nuisance and Disturber” — as a badge of honor.

A Raleigh native, Frank Arthur Daniels Jr. was 14 when he started performing for the paper obtained at an 1894 auction by his grandfather.

Josephus Daniels, later a secretary of the Navy and ambassador to Mexico, utilised the newspaper to endorse white supremacy among the North Carolina Democrats around 1900. But by the upcoming technology of relatives management, The News & Observer had emerged as a stalwart of civil legal rights and racial equality, a dedication that continued under the leadership of Josephus Daniels’ grandson.

“Frank Jr. was the preeminent modernizer of The Information & Observer,” mentioned Ferrel Guillory, who labored at the paper for around 20 many years as a politics reporter, editorial web page editor and columnist. “He observed newspapers as being a catalyst for financial and social and civic engagement and improvement.”

Owen Youngman, a journalism professor emeritus at Northwestern University with a focus on electronic media, lauded Daniels’ job as a pioneer in net publishing, especially for sports activities articles.

“Nando.web and the Nando Moments just plain dominated on the net sports activities in the earliest times,” Youngman, who also labored for many years at the Chicago Tribune, mentioned in an email. “ESPN and United states of america These days did not go on the internet till 1995, for case in point, and Yahoo was striving to classify the web, not publish information. Frank experienced the eyesight to realize that geography was irrelevant … Nando could develop audience any where, and it did.”

Tall with a deep-voiced Southern drawl, Daniels graduated from the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Just after a stint in the Air Power that took him to Japan, he joined his family’s newspaper whole-time in 1956.

His father, Frank Daniels Sr., was the general supervisor and his uncle was the editor. Daniels figured out about all facets of the newspaper business enterprise, promoting promoting and serving as acting circulation manager, he stated in a 2002 oral historical past task interview done by UNC. But he largely stayed apparent of reporting and crafting.

“I was a horrible typist, and you have to be in a position to type to produce a tale,” Daniels claimed in a 2017 job interview with PBS North Carolina. “I relished selling, I relished being with folks. I loved the production. … It seemed purely natural to me.”

Daniels was elevated to president and publisher in 1971 when his father’s health grew to become lousy. His son, Frank Daniels III, also worked his way up via the family members organization to sooner or later grow to be government editor, foremost the newspaper’s net initiatives.

It was a surprise to several when the Daniels spouse and children agreed to offer the paper and six community non-dailies to McClatchy in a offer value $373 million that let him stay publisher.

“You want to be in a position that if you make a decision you want to promote anything, you can sell it on your terms,” Daniels Jr. said when the sale was declared.

McClatchy leadership mentioned at the time the Raleigh newspaper was attractive, in element, simply because it would make the company less reliant on the financial system of California, where by most of its papers have been situated. McClatchy experienced also earlier bought South Carolina newspapers owned by The Information and Observer Publishing Co.

Soon after the sale, Daniels became aspect of a small investment decision group that purchased The Pilot of Southern Pines, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southwest of Raleigh. The group’s holdings have expanded about time to contain Business North Carolina and a number of other publications.

Daniels “was a winner for the free push, a happy North Carolinian and a chief for his community and our condition,” Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said in a tweet Thursday.

Daniels also was the prior chair of the American Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation and the Southern Newspaper Publishers Affiliation. The Hussman Faculty of Journalism and Media at his alma mater, UNC, declared in 2020 that spouse and children members were being developing a new government-in-residence system bearing his title.

Daniels “has constructed a legacy of real truth-telling, education and learning, democracy and courageous journalism across the condition of North Carolina,” UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said at the time, including that the system would “prepare the upcoming technology of media leaders.”

Although AP’s chair, Daniels and Boccardi traveled overseas various occasions to satisfy with media and planet leaders, which includes recently elected President Nelson Mandela on a 1995 check out to South Africa.

“Frank Daniels was a joy to get the job done with,” Boccardi stated. “He combined a quite sharp enterprise brain, a calm administration fashion, a hearty snicker and unquenchable curiosity about every little thing.”

In addition to his son, survivors include things like his spouse of 68 years, Julia Jones Daniels, their daughter, Julia Graham Daniels a few grandchildren 4 terrific-grandchildren two action-grandchildren and 4 phase-excellent-grandchildren.