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 V.
Wetherington Jr., Ph.D.
1942-2009
Professor William A. Mulligan, Ph.D.
Journalism Department
Former Publisher of the Daily Forty-Niner
California State University, Long Beach
THE DOOR OF THE SMALL office was open. The floor was covered with piles of papers. Daily Forty-Niner News-Editorial Adviser Roger V. Wetherington Jr. was not here in his small basement journalism office at California State University, Long Beach.
The former assistant city editor of the New York Daily News was next door in the “Dungeon,” the Forty-Niner newsroom. He was looking over the shoulder of a struggling journalism student writing a news story on a cathode-ray tube Compugraphic computer. He offered expert advice to the student as needed.
Roger—a journalist’s journalist—had earned a doctorate from University of Southern California with the completion of his dissertation on USA Today. He was certainly dedicated to journalism. More importantly he was dedicated to hands-on journalism education, known as the Missouri Method, i.e. learning journalism by doing journalism.
I was fortunate enough to have known Roger in the late 1980s. Roger made my job as publisher of the Daily Forty-Niner much easier.
This was not just a daily student newspaper. Roger made it clear that the Forty-Niner was a daily newspaper that just happened to be on one of the largest campuses in the nation, a school with 35,000 students.
This was Roger’s city, and he rightfully expected the journalism students to take what they had learned in the classroom and apply it to the Forty-Niner, without interference—just advice—from him. Roger offered the options; the students made the decisions.
And, they did just that. Producing high quality journalism, day after day, year after year. Students knew that to be successful newspapermen and newspaperwomen that they had to pass muster with the readers. If their news copy passed muster with their adviser, their teacher, Roger, then indeed it would pass muster with the paper’s readers. Proof of Roger’s success as a journalism teacher was in the work of his students, both before and after graduation.
Roger first came to Cal State Long Beach as Forty-Niner adviser in the mid-1970s. His former students remember.
Pulitzer Prize winner John Hollon, who was Forty-Niner editor in 1977 and later managing editor of the Orange County Register, wrote:
“Roger always seemed amused and a bit perplexed about life in Southern California. 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 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. ...
“He was proud of the tough reporting we did on the administration and campus issues.
“There were a lot of great students working on the Daily Forty Niner during that time who went on to jobs with big newspapers — me [managing editor, Orange County Register], Joel Sappell [reporter, assistant managing editor, Los Angeles Times], Chris Woodyard [reporter, Los Angeles Times and USA Today], Cathy Decker [reporter, Los Angeles Times], Sara Terry [photojournalist, Christian Science Monitor], Amy Martinez Starke [obituary editor, The Oregonian], Steve Mitchell [metro editor, Los Angeles Times], to just name a few.
“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.”
Reporter Chris Woodyard of USA Today wrote:
“He produced so many talented journalists who went on to successful careers in my era. There are so many stories to share, but my favorite is probably the time when we started drinking beer in the Forty-Niner newsroom on Friday afternoons. We all worked really hard and were ready for a break by Fridays.
“Roger had ... [a] big impact on me from the writing side. He was an amazing person and an even more amazing teacher. He pushed me to expand my writing to arenas in which I was never previously exposed.”
Jeff Mitchell, chief editor of the Daily Forty-Niner, spring 1988, wrote:
“Roger was a great teacher and a fine man who truly cared about his students — his kids. Roger had this wonderful way of gently giving you the business when you a made a mistake. While we always took our roles in putting out the Forty-Niner seriously, Roger understood that the paper was first and foremost a teaching laboratory.
“Like many on the Long Beach J-department faculty and staff, Roger was always there to explain what you did wrong and how you could fix it and most importantly how to NEVER DO IT AGAIN! He would then help pick you up, dust you off and send you on your way. Roger loved journalism in every way. He was a great teacher, coach and mentor.”
Communications consultant Michael Cicchese wrote:
“He always had a little look of dishevelment about him. ... 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. ... A great illustration of the difference between the newspaper students and those in public relations was this comment Roger once made to me. ‘I love the PR students in my class. They all call me 'professor.' Wherever Roger is now, there better be an opera, or he'll be p - - - - d.”
Roger the teacher was also Roger the student. Before leaving Long Beach for St. John’s, he attended Professor Ben Cunningham’s Mass Communications Law class, for a semester. Those detailed notes, which he shared, continue to serve me well in the law class that I teach.
Roger was in the Daily Forty-Niner newsroom, looking over the shoulder of a struggling journalism student writing a story on a cathode-ray tube Compugraphic computer. He offered expert advice to the student as needed. The student, who had written a questionable lead, asked Roger to read it, which he did. Then, Roger raised his bushy eyebrows. The student rewrote the lead.
Roger’s advice will be remembered. Roger will be remembered.
-30-
“Roger was a worrywart. 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.”
After his first stint ended with the Forty-Niner, Roger went to Cal State Northridge to serve as adviser to the Sundial. He then returned to Long Beach in late 1980s.
The Forty-Niner, working with an advanced journalism class produced three award-winning special issues while he was the news-editorial director. One was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Ten years later, in 1999, one of Roger’s students in 1988, shared the Pulitzer Prize.
Roger had written the recommendation letter that writer used to get the job.
“I've never had a Pulitzer Prize winner [as a student] before,” Roger said in a story by Forty-Niner reporter. PThe writer had said that he never wanted to be a journalist.
“I'm so flattered. ... He opened my eyes,” Roger stated. “I told him [once] ‘You're the best ... writer I've ever seen.’”
Later, after leaving Cal State Long Beach, Roger used a story from the Forty-Niner as an example in his class at St. John’s University in New York.
The former students of his second period at Long Beach remember.
Los Angles Times copy editor Lee (Tham) Rogers wrote:
“I remember Roger fondly for the invaluable advice he gave, particularly in the beat reporting class (i.e. to get the stories in early in the semester instead of waiting till the last weeks, which at the time I’d thought was funny, seeing how his office was always piled with papers and he seemed behind on his work), and for the candy bars and coffee on which he subsisted. He was a great editor and a wonderful teacher who always made time for his students.”
“Roger was a great teacher long after my graduation. I wrote him a letter to ask him a math question. It was something he’d taught us about percentages, but I couldn’t find my old class notes. He typed up a neat, one-page explanation of how to solve the problem. That crisp page is still in the back of my stylebook, nearly 20 years later, and I still use it.”
