Former UA Little Rock Department Chair Jay Friedlander Dies at 74

Jay Friedlander

Jay Friedlander, a journeyman reporter and former journalism department chairman at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, died Jan. 31 at age 74 in Tampa, Florida.

Friedlander, who moved from Little Rock to the University of South Florida in 1995, retired as director of the university’s School of Mass Communications in 2010.

“Jay’s written work appeared in 40 newspapers and a dozen regional and national magazines,” an obituary by Blount & Curry Funeral Home-Carrollwood Chapel of Tampa said, adding that he edited three book-length annual reports for the Federal Communications Commission and “co-authored numerous college-level journalism textbooks including works on reporting, feature writing and modern mass media.” 

Friedlander was a vocal First Amendment advocate, a lifelong Democrat and a scholar on the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, including at camps in Arkansas. His work on the internment camps led to public TV documentary on the subject.

“He maintained strong and well-researched opinions about everything,” the family obituary said, “including the transition from printed newspapers to digital media.”

Edward Jay Friedlander was born in Maine on April 24, 1945, son of Otto and Marguerite Friedlander.An only child, he earned a journalism degree from the University of Wyoming in 1967 and later a master’s from the University of denver and a doctorate from the University of Northern Colorado.

He worked for daily newspapers in Wyoming, Pennsylvania and Colorado before joining the United States Information Agency as a reporter. In 1969, he spent a year as a film publicist for Universal Pictures, but soon returned to journalism, editing a weekend entertainment magazine for a newspaper chain.

He took his first university post in 1973, teaching mass communications at Central Missouri State in Warrensburg, now Central Missouri University. He took a professorship in Little Rock in 1975, shortly after marrying Roberta Kay Burford, known as R.B.

He is survived by a daughter, Erika, and a partner, Cynthia Bickley. A funeral service was held Friday in Tampa, with burial planned for a family plot in West Virginia.

In lieu of flowers, Friedlander asked for contributions to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, or “any other organization that promotes excellence in journalism or journalism education.”