TV news pioneer Frank dies at age 85

Exec left his greatest mark as a producer

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Frank

Reuven Frank, a former NBC News president and a pioneer of TV journalism, died Sunday in New York of complications from pneumonia. He was 85.

Frank, who joined NBC in 1950, twice held the news division's top job during his 38 years with the network (1968-73, 1982-84). But it was as a producer that he left his greatest mark, at NBC as well as in his profession.

In charge of 1956 political convention coverage, Frank helped transform the infant medium's newsgathering techniques from their origin in radio to a more visual approach.

He also helped create the anchor team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, who debuted to great acclaim at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, then covered the Republican Convention in San Francisco with similar success.

In October 1956, the marriage was sealed with the debut of NBC's weeknight "Huntley-Brinkley Report," for which Frank, the broadcast's executive producer, coined the soon-to-be-famous signoff " 'Good night, David.' 'Good night, Chet.' "

Tom Brokaw (later tapped by Frank to be sole anchor of "NBC Nightly News") described him as "one of the architects of television news. He understood this was a new medium, and he understood how to make pictures and words complement each other instead of fight each other -- which is still sometimes a problem in our business."

Frank produced numerous documentaries, including "The Tunnel," which depicted the escape of 59 East Germans beneath the newly constructed Berlin Wall in 1962. It became the only docu ever to win an Emmy as program of the year.

He was responsible for ambitious, hour-by-hour coverage of the early manned space missions, which riveted the nation.

In the late 1970s he created "Weekend," an irreverent latenight newsmagazine, and in 1982 masterminded "NBC News Overnight," a wee-hours newscast whose wry, literate tone was set by its anchor, Linda Ellerbee.

A Montreal native, Frank was three years out of Columbia U. when he made the risky move to television from a promising job as night city editor of the Newark Evening News.

Frank is survived by his wife, Bernice Kaplow; two sons; and a sister.