ANN ARBOR—
William E. Porter, professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Michigan, died April 21 in Flint. He was 80.
Porter, who retired in 1989, considered himself “a writer and writing teacher first, a researcher and scholar second.”
Well-known as “a kind and gentle man who always had an interesting story to tell,” Porter taught courses in mass media writing, the foreign press, and media and politics at Michigan for nearly three decades beginning in 1962. During his tenure, he also served as chair of the journalism department from 1966 to 1973 and later chaired the communication department in the 1980s.
Prior to coming to the U-M, Porter taught at the University of Iowa for 18 years and worked as a full-time free-lance writer for magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, American, Country Gentleman, Cosmopolitan and Better Homes & Gardens. He also wrote the 1955 novel “The Lawbringers.”
A Fulbright lecturer in Rome in the early 1950s, Porter focused his academic research on Italian journalism and the relationship between government and the media. In 1976, he wrote the award-winning book “Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years,” and earlier co-authored “The Rest of the Elephant: Perspectives on the Mass Media” with U-M professor emeritus John D. Stevens.
Born Oct. 12, 1918, in Chetopa, Kan., Porter received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Kansas in 1939 and a master’s degree in speech and drama from the University of Alabama in 1940.
He is survived by wife, Lois of Ann Arbor; son, James of Chesapeake, Va.; daughter, Liza Trojan of Saline; and six grandchildren.
Cremation has taken place and there will be no memorial service per his wishes.