Frank McGee (journalism) - Definition and Overview

Frank McGee (born September 12, 1915 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA; died April 17, 1974) was a television journalist.

McGee was a news reporter for NBC beginning in the mid 1950s. He had a great talent for descriptive language giving viewers a word picture of the day's events. NBC News's Chet Huntley broke the news of John F. Kennedy's assasination, and McGee was on the phone from Dallas giving an account of this and was on air for 45 hours able to report without a script. In the early 60's, he was also a news reporter on the NBC radio show Monitor.

In 1970, he was a co-anchor with John Chancellor on NBC Nightly News and in 1971, he moved to The Today Show, replacing Hugh Downs, who'd hosted the show since 1962. McGee moved the Today Show into a more serious news presentation. He co-hosted the show with Barbara Walters, but insisted on opening and closing the show by himself. He remained on the air until April 1974, when he took off because he was ill. It turned out to be bone cancer, which he succumbed to less then two weeks after his last Today broadcast. He was replaced by another Oklahoma native, Jim Hartz, who co-hosted the show with Walters until 1976.