Pulitzer Prize-winning Reporter Rod Nordland Dies- I Knew Him When

     Anyone who spent five minutes with Rod Nordland knew he was going places. He was a senior journalism major at Penn State and wrote for The Daily Collegian, news stories and columns that drew equal amounts of praise and rage. Everything was well-written. 

    In 1971, I was a freshman reporter, undecided about my major, and started like everyone else on Features. Early in 1972, I was promoted to the United Student government beat, which I shared with another reporter. When we were told not to disclose something during a campaign, we did not. 

   When it came out anyway, Rod took me aside in the office in the basement of the Sackett Building. He asked me why I kept it under wraps. It was not a personal attack; Rod's concern was always for the best reporting, no matter what. I am sure he soon afterwards spoke to the people who told us to ignore what later became known.

    Most people on the staff who sought Journalism jobs dreamed of big things but ended up on smaller papers throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Rod went with the Philadelphia Inquirer and covered Southeast Asia. A mutual friend from our Penn State days (and later, my best man- my wife was a journalist) visited him and, with a group, sneaked into Pol Pot's Cambodia one night. Later, Rod wrote for Newsweek and the New York Times, winning numerous awards, including the Pulitzer. He also covered wars and conflicts in Southwest Asia, Central America, and Europe.

     His memoir, Waiting for the Monsoon, depicts a chaotic childhood and a career that had more than its share of personal and professional challenges. I would not say we were friends; there was an age difference as well as one of experience. However, he was friendly, and I appreciated knowing him and later reading what he wrote when I could. 

     The largest group of my Penn State friends came from the Collegian, and the campus radio station, WDFM (now WPSU), where I ended up, and wrote columns for the Collegian.  Rod's passing reminds me of my own mortality and brings me back to a time when a group of us thought we were going to set the world on fire. All young people think that. But Rod belonged to the last generation of journalists before the advent of social media, AI, and the fading of print media.

     

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/rod-nordland-75-dies-war-reporter-who-also-wrote-of-his-own-struggle,256377

My books: 

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Arthur-Turfa/author/B00YJ9LNOA?ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=67a4ca9d-d97c-436c-9409-827b215a8174

My novel:

https://www.blurb.com/b/10799783-the-botleys-of-beaumont-county