Wm. A.
MULLIGAN Ph.D.
A Web site for students and friends of journalism
© 2010 William A. Mulligan, Ph.D. All rights reserved.
Professor of Journalism, former department chairman
California State University, Long Beach
Roger Wetherington4
Roger V.
Wetherington Jr., Ph.D.
1942-2009
RICHARD WAGNER
—Wikipedia
Chairman Brady of St. John’s said, “He was
greatly loved at the university by both faculty and students as being a
gentle person, who avoided the confrontations and arguments inherent in
academic politics.”
“His greatest loves were Wagnerian opera and horse racing,” Brady stated.
Wetherington longed for New York City. After he completed his doctorate in journalism from the University of Southern California, he became disenchanted again over the possibility of not having a tenure-track position at Long Beach. So, he returned to New York and joined St. John’s communications faculty, where he served for years as the associate editor of the university's laboratory biweekly, St. John’s Today. He also worked at The New York Times, writing editorials and copyediting.
Andra and Roger split up at this time but remained life-long friends.
He never forgot Long Beach and always remained extremely proud of his work and the Forty-Niner students and was upset by the elimination of the strong lab connections of the journalism courses to the Daily Forty-Niner, which was a successful ingredient of his teaching success. He had been part of the journalism program at Long Beach when it was accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
“They destroyed everything we did!” he told this writer while attending the annual meeting of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Washington, D.C., in August 2007.
The next year, on Thanksgiving Day, 2008, after watching the Macy’s parade from an apartment window, he suffered two brain seizures and went on medical leave from St. John’s in 2009. The cause of death was a heart attack.
“This marked the end of his teaching career,” Miller said. “Roger had never been good at keeping organized, and now, he had trouble remembering things and was unable to find things or to prepare classes, and the department had to scramble to finish up the semester for him.
“Unable to teach, Roger’s heart was broken,” she said.
“We talked the night before he died about his coming back to St. John's (if he was well) in spring of 2010,” Brady said.
“Gentle nudgings to take up fiction writing, something he’d always wanted to do, got him to register in a short-story class, but he never attended,” Miller said.
“Suggestions that he volunteer to help the student newspaper at the high school across the street from his apartment were enthusiastically accepted, but not acted upon,” she said.
“Dear Roger had lost his will and his way,” she said. “The lifelong depression he had battled took hold, and with the aid of his beverage of choice melted him away.”
Mitchell said. “That humane, loving heart of his touched his family, friends, colleagues and students with something far more precious and infinitely more lasting than the specious material riches of our planet.”
Wetherington is survived by his former wife, Andra Miller; a son, Brady Miller Wetherington; a sister, Janice Evans; a cousin, Ora Katherine Smith; and his two treasured companions, Claude Ashby and Mieczyslaw Pawlowski, the Queens Courier reported.
William A. Mulligan was the long-time publisher of the Daily 49er.
“His greatest loves were Wagnerian opera and horse racing,” Brady stated.
Wetherington longed for New York City. After he completed his doctorate in journalism from the University of Southern California, he became disenchanted again over the possibility of not having a tenure-track position at Long Beach. So, he returned to New York and joined St. John’s communications faculty, where he served for years as the associate editor of the university's laboratory biweekly, St. John’s Today. He also worked at The New York Times, writing editorials and copyediting.
Andra and Roger split up at this time but remained life-long friends.
He never forgot Long Beach and always remained extremely proud of his work and the Forty-Niner students and was upset by the elimination of the strong lab connections of the journalism courses to the Daily Forty-Niner, which was a successful ingredient of his teaching success. He had been part of the journalism program at Long Beach when it was accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
“They destroyed everything we did!” he told this writer while attending the annual meeting of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Washington, D.C., in August 2007.
The next year, on Thanksgiving Day, 2008, after watching the Macy’s parade from an apartment window, he suffered two brain seizures and went on medical leave from St. John’s in 2009. The cause of death was a heart attack.
“This marked the end of his teaching career,” Miller said. “Roger had never been good at keeping organized, and now, he had trouble remembering things and was unable to find things or to prepare classes, and the department had to scramble to finish up the semester for him.
“Unable to teach, Roger’s heart was broken,” she said.
“We talked the night before he died about his coming back to St. John's (if he was well) in spring of 2010,” Brady said.
“Gentle nudgings to take up fiction writing, something he’d always wanted to do, got him to register in a short-story class, but he never attended,” Miller said.
“Suggestions that he volunteer to help the student newspaper at the high school across the street from his apartment were enthusiastically accepted, but not acted upon,” she said.
“Dear Roger had lost his will and his way,” she said. “The lifelong depression he had battled took hold, and with the aid of his beverage of choice melted him away.”
Mitchell said. “That humane, loving heart of his touched his family, friends, colleagues and students with something far more precious and infinitely more lasting than the specious material riches of our planet.”
Wetherington is survived by his former wife, Andra Miller; a son, Brady Miller Wetherington; a sister, Janice Evans; a cousin, Ora Katherine Smith; and his two treasured companions, Claude Ashby and Mieczyslaw Pawlowski, the Queens Courier reported.
William A. Mulligan was the long-time publisher of the Daily 49er.
—
WETHERINGTON’S
WHO’S WHO
Former students of Cal State Long Beach continue to proudly call Roger V. Wetherington Jr. their journalism professor, one who made a difference in their lives.
A few of the many that went forward in life from the Daily Forty-Niner laboratory newspaper at Cal State Long Beach to prosper at America’s great newspapers and magazines from the confident seeds of knowledge sown by “The Professor” are:
• Cathleen Decker, reporter, Los Angeles Times.
• Rachel (Williams) Dunn, copy editor, Los Angeles Times.
• Steve Greenberg, political cartoonist, Ventura County Star, Marin Independent Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Daily News of Los Angeles, Editor & Publisher, LAobserved.com and the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles.
• John Hollon, managing editor, Orange County Register; editor, Fancy Publications; editor San Diego Business Journal; top editor, Gannett newspapers in Montana and Hawaii; and editor, Workforce Management magazine. He was on an Orange County Register Pulitzer winning team.
• Tim Hughes, an editor, Newsday, New York.
• Jeff Mitchell, city editor, North County Times, San Diego.
• Steve Mitchell, news editor and designer, Orange County Register, and executive metropolitan editor, Los Angeles Times. He was on an Times Pulitzer winning team.
• Chuck Philips, entertainment reporter, Los Angeles Times. He shared a Pulitzer with Michael Hiltzik.
• Steve Pond, reporter and reviewer, Rolling Stone Magazine.
• Lee (Tham) Rogers, copy editor, Los Angeles Times.
• Joel Sappell, investigative reporter, assistant managing editor, Los Angeles Times.
• Paula Selleck, reporter and free-lancer, Los Angeles Times.
• Amy Martinez Starke, obituary editor, The Oregonian.
• Sara Terry, photojournalist, Christian Science Monitor, and political reporter, The Boston Globe. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Fast Company, Rolling Stone and The Boston Globe Magazine.
• Arvli Ward, media director of Daily Bruin, University of California, Los Angeles.
• Chris Woodyard, reporter, Los Angeles Times and USA Today.
“Roger was always proud of us and the work we did when he was the Forty Niner adviser, and he took pride in what we did after graduation, too,” Woodyard stated.
Please send an e-mail to the writer, if your name should be listed here or other comments.
A few of the many that went forward in life from the Daily Forty-Niner laboratory newspaper at Cal State Long Beach to prosper at America’s great newspapers and magazines from the confident seeds of knowledge sown by “The Professor” are:
• Cathleen Decker, reporter, Los Angeles Times.
• Rachel (Williams) Dunn, copy editor, Los Angeles Times.
• Steve Greenberg, political cartoonist, Ventura County Star, Marin Independent Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Daily News of Los Angeles, Editor & Publisher, LAobserved.com and the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles.
• John Hollon, managing editor, Orange County Register; editor, Fancy Publications; editor San Diego Business Journal; top editor, Gannett newspapers in Montana and Hawaii; and editor, Workforce Management magazine. He was on an Orange County Register Pulitzer winning team.
• Tim Hughes, an editor, Newsday, New York.
• Jeff Mitchell, city editor, North County Times, San Diego.
• Steve Mitchell, news editor and designer, Orange County Register, and executive metropolitan editor, Los Angeles Times. He was on an Times Pulitzer winning team.
• Chuck Philips, entertainment reporter, Los Angeles Times. He shared a Pulitzer with Michael Hiltzik.
• Steve Pond, reporter and reviewer, Rolling Stone Magazine.
• Lee (Tham) Rogers, copy editor, Los Angeles Times.
• Joel Sappell, investigative reporter, assistant managing editor, Los Angeles Times.
• Paula Selleck, reporter and free-lancer, Los Angeles Times.
• Amy Martinez Starke, obituary editor, The Oregonian.
• Sara Terry, photojournalist, Christian Science Monitor, and political reporter, The Boston Globe. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Fast Company, Rolling Stone and The Boston Globe Magazine.
• Arvli Ward, media director of Daily Bruin, University of California, Los Angeles.
• Chris Woodyard, reporter, Los Angeles Times and USA Today.
“Roger was always proud of us and the work we did when he was the Forty Niner adviser, and he took pride in what we did after graduation, too,” Woodyard stated.
Please send an e-mail to the writer, if your name should be listed here or other comments.
ROGER
WETHERINGTON
By WILLIAM A. MULLIGAN
Writer's Note: A shorter version of this article was published in Beach Byline from Cal State Long Beach's journalism department in February 2010.
“Our world has lost a beautifully complex, intellectual, caring and soulful man whose greatest possession was not a fancy car or an expensive watch or a trophy — but rather, a true heart of gold.”
—Steve Mitchell
Former executive news editor
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
x
ROGER V. WETHERINGTON Jr., Ph.D. —Family photo, 2002
COMMUNICATIONS and journalism Chairman Frank R. Brady at St. John’s University observed with delight his fellow colleague, a black-haired, curly headed, mustached professor, who was having the time of his life thousands of miles away from his beloved New York City.
Now, this day, he was in Russia. At a time when most retire, this professor was demonstrating some spoken Russian and sharing his rich knowledge of Russian history with St. John’s students as they visited Russian newspapers and television stations to learn about the media.
The professor was doing what he did best, i.e. teaching. It was the summer before his death at age 67, on July 26, 2009.
This was the highly respected professor, Dr. Roger V. Wetherington Jr., twice the news-editorial director of the Daily Forty-Niner, when it was the Cal State Long Beach journalism department’s laboratory newspaper.
His visit to Russia in 2008 was not his first time in a former communist country. In 2005, he spent a sabbatical year as a Fulbright Scholar in the Central Asian Republic of Kazakhstan at the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research, a 3,000-student, English-language university in Almaty.
He taught 60 students the ways of a free press. For his efforts, he received an award from the university for his efforts on behalf of freedom of the press in Kazakhstan. Wetherington revamped the university’s journalism curriculum and helped to change the school newspaper from a newsletter, in Roger’s words, to “a pretty professional weekly.”
Few knew him better than the former executive news editor Steve Mitchell of the Los Angeles Times, who was one of Wetherington’s students during his first stint with the Forty-Niner in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mitchell and his wife, Paula Selleck, another student of Wetherington, would remain lifelong friends who have never forgotten the gift of knowledge from their former teacher.
“It was perhaps his most dramatic teaching talent that he could convey knowledge and guidance to an inquisitive student in a way that built confidence, rather than shake it,” said Mitchell, who was editor of the Daily Forty-Niner in fall 1978. “He had a magic mix of tough love, human compassion and sensitive understanding,”
“You learned from Roger because you respected his advice and constructive criticism. He was there to help you,” Mitchell said. “You could see it in his kind, knowing eyes.”
Born in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1942, he spent most of his childhood in the small Southern Georgia town of Valdosta. His journalism career started as a copy boy and later the medical beat reporter for the Daily News of New York, where he would become the Manhattan-Bronx-Staten Island editor.
His future wife, Andra Miller, worked in public relations for New York Health and Hospital Corp. when she met him. He was, she recalled, “[The Daily News’] ‘fair’ reporter, the one who dug into the story and always searched out the responses of the Health and Hospital people.”
“The great Roger Wetherington was sitting on my boss’ desk, furiously writing on a reporter’s notepad, repeatedly pushing his sliding glasses back up his nose and fluffing his mustache,” she said. “I thought the great Roger Wetherington was cute.”
“We started dating,” she said. “He took me to an opera gala that he was reviewing for the News. And to operas, and to the track (He loved horse racing — when a boy he said he wanted to grow up to be a jockey or a horse) and to dinners and parties.”
“I found Roger to be a delightfully funny guy, affectionate, caring, loaded with all kinds of facts that well-educated people like him always carry around with them – and he was amazingly witty,” she said. “In the late night, [he was] hilariously wild, singing opera full-voice and awfully – while waiting for a subway train.”
They married and moved to Southern California, where Roger Wetherington took a job teaching journalism and advising the Daily Forty-Niner at Cal State Long Beach.
“Roger loved teaching, though grading was at first an awful trial,” she said. “He loved living in a house in the Los Angeles area although L.A. had no opera — we had to drive to San Diego for that.”
“Roger always seemed amused and a bit perplexed about life in Southern California,” said John Hollon, Forty-Niner editor in 1977. “He wondered how he ended up so far away from New York, and this fact was driven home to him when he listened to the Metropolitan Opera every Sunday on the radio.”
“He always had a little look of dishevelment about him,” said Michael Cicchese, who worked on the Forty-Niner in the late 1980s and now a communications consultant. “He looked like a newspaper journalist.”
“I remember how he constantly talked about the cultural desert that was Los Angeles, and how in New York City there was always an opera to attend. As a native Southern Californian I was a little put off by this, but as a lover of the arts, I knew deep down he was right,” he said. “Wherever Roger is now, there better be an opera, or he’ll be p - - - - d.”
“We started drinking beer in the Forty-Niner newsroom on Friday afternoons,” said reporter Chris Woodyard of USA Today. “We all worked really hard and were ready for a break by Fridays.”
“Roger was a worrywart,” Woodyard said. “He kept seeing his tenure pass before his eyes as soon as a dean caught sight of a Coors can. So Roger tolerated us and kept his distance when it came to beer — and kept his can in a plastic sleeve that made it look like Mountain Dew.”
“He loved the Nugget — the on-campus beer bar — and the notion he could have a beer during the lunch hour without leaving campus, but he also wondered what kind of message it was sending to make beer so available to students,” Hollon said.
Wetherington, however, was not happy at Long Beach so he took a position as adviser to the Sundial at Cal State Northridge in the early 1980s. Unhappy there, too, he returned to Cal State Long Beach in the the late 1980s to re-assume his duties as the Forty-Niner’s news-editorial director.
