William J. Coughlin worked as a reporter with United Press International, served as London and Moscow bureau chief for McGraw-Hill News, edited the weekly magazine Missiles and Rockets and was a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. But it was in the small town of Washington, N.C., that the veteran journalist won a Pulitzer Prize as the executive editor of the Washington Daily News, a family-run newspaper with a circulation of 10,000.
Coughlin, '44, MA '50, died May 8 in Bolivia, N.C., of liver cancer. He was 91.
In the summer of 1989, Coughlin read in the fine print on the back of his utility bill that the city of Washington was testing its water. He assigned reporters to investigate and, after interviewing state and environmental health officials, they asked both government and private toxicologists to sample the water. The analyses revealed that the water supply was contaminated with carcinogens; the concentration of one chemical was nine times the level deemed safe by the EPA. The reporters found that at least three mayors, along with city managers and state, local and federal officials, were aware of the problem but had kept it under wraps.
Ten days after the first story broke, the Marine Corps and National Guard arrived with fresh drinking water to satisfy the town's needs. The following month the mayor and city manager were asked to resign, and the state changed its water regulations. Under Coughlin, the Daily News published more than 30 articles about the scandal and won a Pulitzer Gold Medal for Public Service in 1990.
Coughlin's daughter Kerry, a consultant for the Marine Stewardship Council in Seattle, said her father "was subtle about the way he approached his work." She recalled a bureaucratic dinner party held at their house during which Coughlin spent the whole evening without taking notes. "As soon as the guests left, he left the room, and I asked him where he was going. 'To file the story,' he said. He built relationships yet he was very aggressive when it came to pursuing a story."
Coughlin served in the Army Air Forces during World War II and was an adviser to former senator John Tunney, a California Democrat. After he left the Daily News in 1990, he taught journalism at Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C., until his retirement in 1996.
Coughlin is survived by his first wife, Geraldine Coughlin; second wife, Patricia Conlon; children, Kelly Webb, Kevin and Kerry; three grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.
Julie Muller Mitchell, '79, is a writer in San Francisco.
