On a cool autumn day during harvest, John Jordan, chief executive officer of Jordan Vineyard & Winery, steps away from meetings with staff at the winery to talk politics. Not with the Jordan staff, or family and friends, because when it comes to his personal life, he has no interest in debating politics. Instead, Jordan takes the stairs to his second-floor office, where he prepares to talk live on Fox News. 
Still wearing jeans and a pair of casual shoes, he steps into the soundproof studio next to his office where he pulls on a collared shirt, jacket and tie. Moments later, he’s on-air with Fox News. And on this afternoon, he’s taking on two important topics—prospects for tax reform and Senator Bernie Sanders’ health care proposal.
While you may know Jordan as the man behind Jordan Vineyard & Winery, what’s not common knowledge is that he has a Juris Doctorate and a master’s in business administration. He’s also fluent in three languages, a licensed pilot, a Commander in the Navy Reserve and a self-described “news junkie.” How did he get interested in broadcast news? “I’m the Forrest Gump of TV,” he says with a smile. “I stumbled into it. I wrote a few op-ed pieces for the The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Caller, Independent Journal Review and Fox News.” He continued to write whenever inspiration would strike, but one day he received an unexpected phone call and that was the game changer. “An executive at Fox News called,” Jordan says. “He said, ‘You write a lot. Do you want to try TV?’”
Always up for a challenge, Jordan traveled back and forth in his own plane to the Fox News Bureau in Los Angeles the first year to try his hand as a commentator. He also traveled to Washington D.C. and New York City. But as his on-air work progressed, he took action to make his work fit his lifestyle and had a TV studio constructed next to his office, directly above the winery’s bottling line.
Today, Jordan is an internationally-known TV personality. He averages three to four live broadcasts a week. Fluent in several languages, Jordan often provides commentary for broadcasts, explaining American politics for German and Russian television networks. What’s more, he can speak knowledgeably on a variety of topics—law, economics, airplanes, defense, terrorism and more. Recently, he was a commentator on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” and he’s frequently on the Fox Business Channel. What are his thoughts about the current state of politics in America today? “The establishment of both parties have failed the American people,” he says. “That is why we are where we are.”
Jordan’s favorite type of broadcast is providing commentary on breaking news. “[I like] providing a professional-level analysis on the fly. It’s intellectually challenging, brutally objective and unforgiving. Millions [of people] see it. If you screw up, you’re humiliated,” says 45-year-old Jordan, who compares broadcast news to contact sports like football. “This gets my blood up.”
As for his future in the news business, Jordan plans to continue to follow his instincts. “There’s a lot of joy in it. I like being part of the international conversation, but I don’t have a specific plan. I didn’t see this coming,” he says. “Thirty-six months ago, if someone had said, ‘You’ll be a TV personality,’ I’d have said, ‘hell no.’ This [experience] has taught me you can’t predict it.”
