Media visionary Frank Magid dies

Tonight when you tune in to the evening news, be sure to thank Frank Magid.

The original “news doctor” and founder of the Marion Frank N. Magid Associates died Friday morning. He was 78.

After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Iowa, the Chicago native taught sociology at U of I and anthropology and statistics at Coe College before he founded his research and consultant firm in 1956.

“When I started there, he told me he hoped that his firm could see what everyone else saw but thought what no one else thought,” said Joe George, of Cedar Rapids, a former vice-president of marketing at Magid's firm. “And he did. He thought and saw things in dimensions no one else could. He was a genius.”

Magid applied his understanding of science, statistics and human behavior toward what was then a very new way of getting our news: television. Magid, like his modest, almost anonymous office building and company headquarters in Marion, liked to fly under the radar in his dealings. Over the next fifty years, his enterprise expanded to offices in Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis and London, servicing media companies and personalities across the world.

Former WMT reporter and current Iowa Public Television journalist, Dean Borg, says that Magid had a vision for television and over his long, established career, saw it come to fruition.

“Broadcast journalism came out of newspapering, they were just simply reading a script and on occasion looking up to keep eye contact,” Borg said. “By spicing up the news or being more dramatic, TV could do so much more to be illustrative of a story.”

Beyond transforming television, friends and associates say Magid was a generous, charitable man who helped local non-profits and organizations. He's also the reason why Eastern Iowa Airport is Eastern Iowa Airport.

“We worked together in getting this airport to where it is,” said Tom Aller, 60, of Cedar Rapids. “He saw it as the first and last impression of the community.”

Aller says his friend was a private man, but one who took pride in Cedar Rapids, and Iowa as a whole.

“With his success, they could have lived anywhere but they called Cedar Rapids home,” Aller said. “They loved the community and we're better for it.”

Magid is survived by his wife, Marily, and their two sons, Chip and Brent.