J-School Benefactor David Logan Dies

David Logan, whose endowment created the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, died on Saturday (Jan. 22) in Chicago. He was 93.

Logan, a prominent Chicago investor, died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He suffered from pneumonia following a heart operation, his family said.

“The passing of David Logan is a great loss for the cause of investigative reporting,” said Professor Lowell Bergman, holder of the Reva and David Logan Chair in Investigative Reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism.

“Most important was his deep belief, that he expressed to me and others, in the kind of work that brings about change, that rights wrongs. David Logan, a man of great experience, provided us with a critical analysis of our work, along with his largesse.”

In 2006, Logan donated $1.5 million to the Journalism School to establish the endowed chair. Additional funds were given by the campus and private donors.

Appointed to the chair was Bergman, best known for his work at “60 Minutes”. His dispute with CBS executives over his investigation of Big Tobacco was brought to the screen in the Michael Mann movie “The Insider”.

David and Reva Logan

Logan’s gifts also helped shape the culture of the Bay Area and Chicago, where he resided with his wife, Reva.

Logan, an attorney, was a jazz enthusiast and a avid collector of art and photography books. He served on the Illinois Arts Council for 29 years.

“David Logan had a deep love for art, seeing that children were exposed to it, supporting artists projects, and collecting illustrated books and photography. With his family he amassed a wonderful collection which he than then donated to institutions so that others could share in these marvelous works,” said Adjunct Professor Ken Light, director of the school’s documentary photography program.

He was a friend and benefactor of photography and those who had the opportunity to share this passion with him and his generosity and vision know he was an original and a visionary patron of the arts.

The Reva and David Logan Foundation is a private, independent grant-making institution focusing on education, the arts, religion, civil society, social change and aid to the disadvantaged.

Program cover for the second annual Reva and David Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting.

In addition to his gift to the Journalism School, Logan also helped support an annual symposium on investigative reporting at UC Berkeley, the Center for Investigative Reporting and PBS’s Frontline. He also co-sponsored “Jazz,” the documentary film series by Ken Burns.

In 1998, the Logan foundation created the Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

They also gave the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco 250 limited-edition books illustrated by modern artists and provided an endowment for future acquisitions and an annual lecture on the modern art of the book.

–Marlena Telvick