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
Bio2
THE LIFE & TIMES OF
Wm. A. MULLIGAN
20 yearsxx
at thexxxx
Beachxxxx
—NEWSPAPER DAYS— _
CSULB professor
since 1986
William Anthony Mulligan has taught college full time at the University of Missouri School of Journalism at Columbia, Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas and, since August 1986, at California State University, Long Beach.He has lectured on “The Role of Journalism in Economic Development” at the University of Liaoning Province (Shenyang), Jiangnian University (Wuxi), and Hangzhou University in China. Also, he has given seminars in China on the same topic for the top editors of Wuxi Daily and Hangzhou Daily and held discussions with the editors of China Daily, Beijing, Shenyang Daily, and Xinhua (New China) News Agency, Beijing.
Mulligan has a Bachelor of Science degree in sociology from Brescia College, Owensboro, Ky., a Master of Science degree in communications and a Specialist in College Teaching degree from Murray State University, in Kentucky.
M.U.’s 100th Ph.D.
His Doctor of Philosophy degree in journalism is from the University of Missouri-Columbia. His areas of study at Missouri were: Chinese journalism, higher education, freedom of information and publication design. Mulligan is Missouri Journalism School’s 100th Ph.D.
His dissertation, “Journalism Revolution in China,” was completed in 1986 at Missouri, after he spent more than two years working as a copy editor at Xinhua News Agency in Beijing. The dissertation employed Dr. William Stephenson’s Q-research methods.
A Q-Methodology study was conducted to ascertain the role of the Chinese journalists and to determine if they perceive a change in attitudes of Chinese journalists toward Chinese journalism since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
Worked in China
as copy editor
William Mulligan went to China in 1981, shortly after the Cultural Revolution and U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit in 1972 to open the door for the establishment of relations between the two nations, in 1979.
William Mulligan went to China in 1981, shortly after the Cultural Revolution and U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit in 1972 to open the door for the establishment of relations between the two nations, in 1979.
American journalist Edgar Snow, who had attended the Missouri Journalism School, arranged Nixon’s meeting with Mao.
The School of Journalism renewed a China link that had been established by three Columbia, Mo., families — the Gentrys, Rollins and Stephens — in the mid-1800s.e Schww.longbeachopera.org/inde
Mulligan was sent to China in exchange for the Chinese journalists who came to the Missouri Journalism School in 1980 to earn master's degrees in journalism under the Edgar Snow program; he was the first and only professor sent by Dean Roy Fisher, former editor of the Chicago Daily News.
After Nixon’s visit, Missouri’s Dean Fisher had gone to China to meet with Vice Premier Bo Yibo and re-establish broken relations, due to the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976, with the Chinese.
After Nixon’s visit, Missouri’s Dean Fisher had gone to China to meet with Vice Premier Bo Yibo and re-establish broken relations, due to the Cultural Revolution, with the Chinese.
Mulligan’s supervisor in the Department of Domestic News for Foreign Service at Xinhua was Director Chen Lung. Chen had been on the Long March with Chairman Mao Zedong, founder of Red China News Service, now Xinhua, on Nov. 7, 1931, in Jiangxi Province. Chairman Mao was a writer at Xinhua.
Chairman Mao declared the founding of New China — the People’s Republic of China — standing on a rostrum in front of the emperors’ Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square on Oct. 1, 1949.
Director Chen traveled to Missouri, along with the department’s vice director, Wang Renlin, in November 1981, to interview Mulligan. Upon Mulligan’s arrival in Beijing — 11 p.m. Friday the 13th of February in the year 1981 — on China’s CAAC second monthly 24-hour flight from America —
After Nixon’s visit, Missouri’s Dean Fisher had gone to China to meet with Vice Premier Bo Yibo and re-establish broken relations, due to the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976, with the Chinese.
After Nixon’s visit, Missouri’s Dean Fisher had gone to China to meet with Vice Premier Bo Yibo and re-establish broken relations, due to the Cultural Revolution, with the Chinese.
Mulligan’s supervisor in the Department of Domestic News for Foreign Service at Xinhua was Director Chen Lung. Chen had been on the Long March with Chairman Mao Zedong, founder of Red China News Service, now Xinhua, on Nov. 7, 1931, in Jiangxi Province. Chairman Mao was a writer at Xinhua.
Chairman Mao declared the founding of New China — the People’s Republic of China — standing on a rostrum in front of the emperors’ Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square on Oct. 1, 1949.
Director Chen traveled to Missouri, along with the department’s vice director, Wang Renlin, in November 1981, to interview Mulligan. Upon Mulligan’s arrival in Beijing — 11 p.m. Friday the 13th of February in the year 1981 — on China’s CAAC second monthly 24-hour flight from America —
San Francisco — on a huge aircraft as one of only three passengers.
Upon landing in Shanghai for refueling, submachine-gun totting soldiers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army boarded the aircraft, with a gift, a token greeting from the days of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution. A couple days late, Mulligan met with Director Chen in the Xinhua food hall.
Publisher William A. Mulligan reflects on 50 years of the Forty-Niner the University Library's reception and exhibit on Nov. 11, 1999. —Photo: 49er Publications Manual, A Reflection on 50 Years, 2001, Garth Milan/Daily Forty-Niner
Mao Zedong at Beijing Airport.
—Undated photograph, William
Mulligan Collection, © 2009
William A. Mulligan, Ph.D. All
rights reserved.
Yes, on the graveyard shift, after the papers rolled off the press in the basement below in groups of 25 and traveled up a conveyor belt to the mail room, he hand bundled them for the route carriers, quickly tying each with twine that he cut with a finger ring-knife.
And, yes, some days, he hand-stuffed newspaper inserts into thousands of papers.
Yes, he did sell and design display advertising, and he did deliver ad proofs to merchants before publication and tear sheets to them after publication.
Yes, at that daily newspaper, too, one of his duties was to work as a head-phoned telephone operator on an ancient switchboard with many dangling cables and small white lights, in which the mouthpiece was held in the left hand while the right hand was used to plug in cables to connect the calls to the newsroom, advertising, composing room, wherever needed.
Yes, he did sell and design display advertising, and he did deliver ad proofs to merchants before publication and tear sheets to them after publication.
Yes, at that daily newspaper, too, one of his duties was to work as a head-phoned telephone operator on an ancient switchboard with many dangling cables and small white lights, in which the mouthpiece was held in the left hand while the right hand was used to plug in cables to connect the calls to the newsroom, advertising, composing room, wherever needed.
Yes, during his early days of working for his hometown newspaper, while in college, he did yell “STOP THE PRESSES,” to make a correction on a full-page ad.
Yes, in cold December, as part of the publisher's public service efforts, he visited the city's grade schools to obtain the names of children who needed shoes, and he gave out toys to children at the local sports arena, at the newspaper's annual Goodfellows Christmas party.
Yes, on the first day of his job in the mailroom at that hometown newspaper, he was tricked by fellow newspaper workers when he was told to go to the basement pressroom and get a “paper stretcher,” a piece of chain dipped into the press' ink well, which was handed to him dripping black ink by the pressmen.
No, he never did that again.
Yes, as the publisher's assistant, of this paper he did write a lengthy historical feature that included a lengthy interview with the city's police chief.
Yes, as a copy editor, of the Columbus Evening Dispatch, he did inform the copy desk chief that President Richard Nixon plan to resign as president of the United States of America.
Then, the newspaper’s radio dispatchers notified the orange box delivery trucks with the newsstand edition that the papers in the back of their trucks was out of date and told them to return to the mail room delivery docks for a re-printed edition of the newspaper with the screaming banner headline, “NIXON TO RESIGN,” that day, Aug. 9, 1974.
Yes, he did introduce Xinhua News Agency to Walter William’s Missouri Method of teaching journalism, after the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976.
Yes, his seventh-floor copy editing room at Xinhua had a very large New York Times poster on the wall that simply stated: “Who, What, When, Why, How.”
And, yes, in that copy editing room, the Chinese-language maps of China and the world next to the Times poster were from the CIA.
Yes, as the only English-language copy editor late one night at Xinhua, he did write a piece titled “No News Tonight,” which was featured in Managing Editor Daryl Moen's Columbia Missourian column.
Yes, he did copy edit China’s first stories on its plan to get Hong Kong back from Great Britain, while working at Xinhua News Agency in the early 1980s. The stories were completed long after he left the agency, with Hong Kong's turnover to China, July 21, 1997.
Yes, as a graduate student, he did take and did pass the FCC's — Federal Communications Commission's — test for a radio certification to be a DJ, when he was working on his master’s degree in communications at Murray State.
Yes, while a weekly newspaper editor, he did have his forehead stitched up by an ex-Army surgeon following a pool-stick bashing for writing a “Mulligan's Stew” column in support of traffic safety.
Yes, as a college student, he did work in concessions at the Ellis Park Race Course (founded in 1922 as Dade Park), soda jerking Coke and 7-Up. He was not of age to sell draft beer. The pay was in cash, sometimes in silver dollars.
And, yes, to earn money for college, he also worked at the Red Barn, for 80 cents an hour, serving chicken and burgers.
Yes, as a high school student, he did drive a yellow Bel-Air.
Yes, as a twice-a-day newspaper carrier, he did sell, from his heavy-duty Schwinn bicycle, the EXTRA newspaper edition on John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Nov. 22, 1963.
Yes, as a child, this writer did first leave home at the age of 14 to attend St. Thomas seminary in Louisville pronounced “Luu-vill,” 120 miles away. His first airplane flight was the trip back home for the holidays, which were spoiled by study for the final exams he faced upon his return to school in January.
And, yes, there the school headmaster, Father White, taught him three things: to read and write classical Latin, to wear a windbreaker jacket-and-tie when attending class and meals, and to eat fried chicken with a knife and fork.
And, yes, as a child, he did go with his dad at 5 a.m. on hot summer days to the farm of a family friend, where his father hand suckered (removed the terminal buds) from tobacco plants.
No, he did not marry a Kentucky girl.
Yes, he did copy edit China’s first stories on its plan to get Hong Kong back from Great Britain, while working at Xinhua News Agency in the early 1980s. The stories were completed long after he left the agency, with Hong Kong's turnover to China, July 21, 1997.
Yes, as a graduate student, he did take and did pass the FCC's — Federal Communications Commission's — test for a radio certification to be a DJ, when he was working on his master’s degree in communications at Murray State.
Yes, while a weekly newspaper editor, he did have his forehead stitched up by an ex-Army surgeon following a pool-stick bashing for writing a “Mulligan's Stew” column in support of traffic safety.
Yes, as a college student, he did work in concessions at the Ellis Park Race Course (founded in 1922 as Dade Park), soda jerking Coke and 7-Up. He was not of age to sell draft beer. The pay was in cash, sometimes in silver dollars.
And, yes, to earn money for college, he also worked at the Red Barn, for 80 cents an hour, serving chicken and burgers.
Yes, as a high school student, he did drive a yellow Bel-Air.
Yes, as a twice-a-day newspaper carrier, he did sell, from his heavy-duty Schwinn bicycle, the EXTRA newspaper edition on John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Nov. 22, 1963.
Yes, as a child, this writer did first leave home at the age of 14 to attend St. Thomas seminary in Louisville pronounced “Luu-vill,” 120 miles away. His first airplane flight was the trip back home for the holidays, which were spoiled by study for the final exams he faced upon his return to school in January.
And, yes, there the school headmaster, Father White, taught him three things: to read and write classical Latin, to wear a windbreaker jacket-and-tie when attending class and meals, and to eat fried chicken with a knife and fork.
And, yes, as a child, he did go with his dad at 5 a.m. on hot summer days to the farm of a family friend, where his father hand suckered (removed the terminal buds) from tobacco plants.
No, he did not marry a Kentucky girl.
Yes, he was at: the Columbia Missourian's 75th anniversary; the Columbia Missourian's 100th anniversary; at Xinhua News Agency's 50th anniversary in Beijing; he was at Long Beach's Daily Forty-Niner's 40th anniversary; and, he was at the Daily Forty-Niner's 50th anniversary.
No, he is not a Kentucky Colonel.
Yes, he is an Outstanding Texan (1985).
Yes indeed, newspaper ink has always flowed in his bloodstream.
-30-
20 years at the Beach
AMERICAN JOURNALIST Edgar Snow,
above, remembered at Beijing University, in 1982. He covered Chairman Mao Zedong's, right, revolution, in the 1930s. —Wm. A. Mulligan. © 2009. All rights reserved.
At that long meeting, Director Chen talked about the day Chairman Mao took over the capital and started tearing down, for defense purposes, the ancient city wall surrounding Old Beijing. The nearly 530-year-old wall had been built as a fortification in 1435, and was completely removed except for a few gates in 1965 to build a highway through the city.
However, most importantly, Director Chen, using peanuts, taught Mulligan the art of using chopsticks. Mulligan lived across the street from the agency’s main building on the multi-lane Xuwuman avenue, a few blocks from Tiananmen Square, in Xinhua Apartment Building No. 2, Gate 1, which was built in 1964 atop the site of that ancient wall that Mao had removed.
Snow, who had studied at the Missouri Journalism School, was also on the Long March with Chairman Mao and Director Chen, which he wrote about in his “Red Star Over China.”
In 1928 Snow had arrived in Shanghai with a letter of introduction from Journalism School founder (1908) Dean Walter Williams that was presented to John Benjamin Powell, Chicago Tribune correspondent and editor of the China Weekly Review. Snow later taught journalism at Peking (now Beijing) University.
Snow stated that he got small doses of propaganda from Mao, but no control. “[Mao] never imposed any censorship on me, in either my writing or my photography, courtesies for which I was grateful. He did his best to see that I got the facts ... .”
Members of Mulligan’s doctorate committee at the Missouri Journalism School, and their areas of academic interest were:
Chairman Dr. Won Ho Chang, director of the Edgar Snow Fellowships (theory, Q Methodology); Dr. Keith Sanders (research, Q Methodology); typographer Dr. Paul Fisher, director of the Freedom of Information Center and once a student under Frederic Goudy (freedom of information and publication design); Dr. Don Ranly (magazine writing and design); and Dr. Walter Hunter, School of Education (higher education).
Professor William H. Taft, president of Kappa Tau Alpha National Honor Society, was his initial adviser at Missouri. The writer does not think Professor Taft thought his student would amount to much. The writer hopes he has not disappointed the professor.
While a graduate student at the Missouri School of Journalism before and after working in China, Mulligan was also on the undergraduate and graduate faculty, teaching copy editing. He was a news editor on the Columbia Missourian.
He completed his master’s degree in communications at Murray State University, studying under the program's founder, Loren Joseph “L.J.” Hortin, once the director of the Ohio University School of Journalism. His thesis under Professor Hortin was on the newspapers of Marshall County, Kentucky.
Later, after working at the Columbus Evening Dispatch as a copy editor, he returned to Murray State to complete a specialist degree in college teaching, under Kentucky educator Dr. Charles Tolley.
Mulligan’s sociology degree is from Brescia College, Owensboro, Ky., where he studied under the Ursline sisters of Mount St. Joseph, including college President Joan Marie Lechner, English; and Ruth Gehres, literature; and under, Ed Kellogg, once of Sports Illustrated, journalism; and David Bartholomy, creative writing, who continues to teach English at now Brescia University. Father Charles Saffer was his philosophy teacher.
His teaching career started at the Murray State News, where he taught editing as a graduate assistant. Mulligan’s professional teaching career begun the day he reported for duty in the newsroom of the Columbia Missourian, at the School of Journalism — Aug. 8, 1978.
The son of a Kentucky bourbon distillery worker and homemaker and one-time newspaper proofreader, he started his newspaper career as a newspaper carrier for the hometown Messenger & Inquirer, where he later worked, during various jobs, while in college.
Chairman Dr. Won Ho Chang, director of the Edgar Snow Fellowships (theory, Q Methodology); Dr. Keith Sanders (research, Q Methodology); typographer Dr. Paul Fisher, director of the Freedom of Information Center and once a student under Frederic Goudy (freedom of information and publication design); Dr. Don Ranly (magazine writing and design); and Dr. Walter Hunter, School of Education (higher education).
Professor William H. Taft, president of Kappa Tau Alpha National Honor Society, was his initial adviser at Missouri. The writer does not think Professor Taft thought his student would amount to much. The writer hopes he has not disappointed the professor.
While a graduate student at the Missouri School of Journalism before and after working in China, Mulligan was also on the undergraduate and graduate faculty, teaching copy editing. He was a news editor on the Columbia Missourian.
He completed his master’s degree in communications at Murray State University, studying under the program's founder, Loren Joseph “L.J.” Hortin, once the director of the Ohio University School of Journalism. His thesis under Professor Hortin was on the newspapers of Marshall County, Kentucky.
Later, after working at the Columbus Evening Dispatch as a copy editor, he returned to Murray State to complete a specialist degree in college teaching, under Kentucky educator Dr. Charles Tolley.
Mulligan’s sociology degree is from Brescia College, Owensboro, Ky., where he studied under the Ursline sisters of Mount St. Joseph, including college President Joan Marie Lechner, English; and Ruth Gehres, literature; and under, Ed Kellogg, once of Sports Illustrated, journalism; and David Bartholomy, creative writing, who continues to teach English at now Brescia University. Father Charles Saffer was his philosophy teacher.
His teaching career started at the Murray State News, where he taught editing as a graduate assistant. Mulligan’s professional teaching career begun the day he reported for duty in the newsroom of the Columbia Missourian, at the School of Journalism — Aug. 8, 1978.
The son of a Kentucky bourbon distillery worker and homemaker and one-time newspaper proofreader, he started his newspaper career as a newspaper carrier for the hometown Messenger & Inquirer, where he later worked, during various jobs, while in college.
He also worked at a Kentucky thoroughbred horse race course in summers.
In the first semester of his freshman year at Brescia, he had to write a term paper in English composition. After a late-night session pounding out the paper on a manual Smith-Corona portable typewriter, at the dining room table, the grade of A and the encouraging remarks on his paper came as quite a surprise. ??
The paper was about yellow journalism causing America's first media war, the Spanish-American War of 1898. This was the beginning of his writing career.
The writer does not remember that young nun’s name, but she is responsible for the beginnings of all of this, the beginning of a journalism career.
In the first semester of his freshman year at Brescia, he had to write a term paper in English composition. After a late-night session pounding out the paper on a manual Smith-Corona portable typewriter, at the dining room table, the grade of A and the encouraging remarks on his paper came as quite a surprise. ??
The paper was about yellow journalism causing America's first media war, the Spanish-American War of 1898. This was the beginning of his writing career.
The writer does not remember that young nun’s name, but she is responsible for the beginnings of all of this, the beginning of a journalism career.
Little-known facts
Yes, William Mulligan did work at his hometown daily letterpress printed newspaper that handset, letter by letter, the cast-lead display type of headlines and advertising.
And, yes, he did learn at that newspaper how to proofread upside down a galley of inverted body type.
Those typeset slug lines were produced, line by line, by the Linotype machines from long 22-pound lead ingots known as “pigs,” hook-and- chain suspended above the macine's melting pot. After printing, the typeset line slugs were thrown into a metal cart, the “Hell Box,” for recycling.
Yes, he did drink Coca-Cola from 6-ounce bottles purchased for 5 cents each from a vending machine in the foyer outside of the newsroom.
Yes, he did learn photojournalism using a Graflex Speed Graphic press camera, below. The photographer loaded two sheets of 4-by-5 inch black-and-white film was loaded and developed by hand in the darkroom. A bulky heavy camera pack was worn on the belt for the flash.
GRAFLEX Speed
Graphic press camera.
