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
Bio4
THE LIFE & TIMES OF
Wm. A. MULLIGAN
Wm. A. MULLIGAN
China remembers
Edgar Snow
After returning from working at Xinhua in China, William
Mulligan wrote an article on Edgar Snow in Journalism
Alumni News, published by the Walter Williams Club, at
the Journalism School University of Missouri, where
Snow once studied. The photo here was shot at Beijing
University, where Snow once taught journalism, at a 1982
meeting on the life of Snow. The writer met with Snow's wife,
Lois, left below, after the meeting that evening to discuss
the past and future of journalism in China.
Instructor Mulligan's article, was published in the issue of
Journalism News, bottom, marking the 75th anniversary
of the founding of the world's first journalism school.
Missouri first
journalism school
At the Missouri Journalism School, Instructor William
Mulligan taught copy editing and was a news editor on
the Columbia Missourian. He worked at the school before
and after Dean Roy Fisher sent him to China, where he
spent more than two years as a copy editor at Xinhua
News Agency, Beijing, shortly after the Culture Revolution.
From August 1978 to December 1986, while at the
Missouri Journalism School, Mulligan worked under
three deans, beginning with Roy Fisher, the former
editor of the Chicago Daily News.
When he returned from China in summer 1983, the former
president of ABC News, Elmer Lower, was dean. Lower
was replaced by James D. Atwater, former senior editor
of Time magazine.
Mulligan taught copy editing to undergraduate and graduate
students on the second floor of Neff Hall. Outside the
building stand two Chinese lions guarding the Journalism
School's archway. The lions were a gift of friendship to the
Missouri School of Journalism, in the 1930s.
The school, founded in 1908, celebrated its 75th anniversary,
below, while he was working there, after his China experience.
He was a news editor on the Columbia Missourian at the time.
—Photo and article in M.U. Journalism School's Alumni News
by William A. Mulligan
