Joseph Pulitzer was the first editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Then Joseph Pulitzer II. Then his son, Joseph Pulitzer Jr. Then a guy named Bill Woo.
Born in Shanghai and reared in Missouri, Woo was hired at the age of 25 by a Post-Dispatch editor who liked his energetic writing. Woo became a feature writer, foreign correspondent, Washington columnist, editorial page editor and then the first Asian-American to edit a major U.S. daily. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist three times, in three different categories. His weekly column, long on empathy and intellect, became a reader favorite as he often used personal stories to illuminate larger issues, including urban matters and national politics.
The same approach benefited Stanford students after Woo became the Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor of Journalism in 1996, a position he kept until his death in 2006. He began writing weekly essays to his students, rich with anecdotes from his career and now compiled in Letters from the Editor: Lessons on Journalism and Life (edited with an introduction by Philip Meyer, University of Missouri Press,
$34.95 and $19.95).
In one essay Woo described how, as a cub reporter, he got an interview with Lyndon Johnson after a hotel fire by following two men who carried out the vice-presidential seal that had been hung on a lectern. About the importance of journalistic fundamentals such as “stay with the story,” he wrote, “The humble things we do over and over again become like bonds of steel that keep our work from sundering. Dramatic accomplishments bring the crowd to its feet, but simple homely competence is what carries the day.”
—BRIAN EULE, ’01
