William Woestendiek, former USC journalism school director, dies at 90

William Woestendiek, a journalist and former director of the University of Southern California school of journalism, died at a Mesa, Ariz., nursing facility Friday after a long illness. He was 90.

A reporter and editor of several newspapers, such as the Cleveland Plain Dealer and now-defunct Colorado Springs Sun, Woestendiek was born in Newark, N.J., and had a lengthy career in journalism. As editor of the Houston Post, which no longer exists, the paper under Woestendiek won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for its expose of government corruption in a Houston suburb that resulted in widespread reforms.

Intertwined in his newspaper career, Woestendiek served in the Army during World War II and the Korean War. He was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University from 1954 until 1955.

Woestendiek served as the director of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism from 1988 until he retired in 1994.

Woestendiek is survived by his wife, Bonnie, of Gilbert, Ariz., and his three children, Kathryn Woestendiek Scepanski of Deforest, Wis.; William John Woestendiek Jr. of Winston-Salem, N.C.; Theodore Woestendiek of Winston-Salem, N.C., a brother, Eugene Woestendiek, of Buffalo, N.Y., and many nieces and nephews.

In 1983, during a City Club forum, Woestendiek offered his view of newspapers.

“A newspaper shouldn’t be above its readership -- not aloof and arrogant,” he said. “It should be opinionated, even outrageous, but it should be sensible, informative, controversial and, above all, fair.”

This article will be updated.

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