Former Chicago Tribune publisher and editor-in-chief R. Bruce Dold passed away this week.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Dold died Wednesday at the age of 70. The Tribune said in an obit by Robert Channick that Dold had been battling esophageal cancer for four years.

A native of New Jersey, Dold earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Northwestern University, studying at the Medill School of Journalism.

While attending Medill, Dold hosted a jazz show on WNUR radio, and wrote about music for the Daily Northwestern newspaper, the university noted.

After earning his master's, Dold joined the Tribune in 1978. He started out on the suburban beat, and met his wife, Eileen, at the paper.

"She covered Schaumburg. I covered Skokie. It worked," Dold wrote in his Tribune bio.

Dold went on to cover city, state, and national politics and other hard news for the Tribune. Speaking to his own newspaper in 2016, Dold pointed to the bitter fight in the City Council over the selection of an acting mayor following the death of Mayor Harold Washington in 1987.

After seven days that culminated in a contentious, wild City Council meeting, Ald. Eugene Sawyer (6th) was selected to finish Washington's term as acting mayor. Sawyer was pitted against another alderman, future Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans (4th), with factions of aldermen going to bat and battle for each.

"While the city was in grief, all the aldermen were scurrying around and trying to pick a puppet who was going to run the city for them," Dold told The Trib in 2016. "It was the richest story I've ever seen in my life, and I got an opportunity to do that because I worked for the Chicago Tribune."

Dold also covered the special election in 1989 that brought Mayor Richard M. Daley into the Chicago mayor's office.

Editorial page editor Lois Wille invited Dold to join the Tribune editorial board in 1990, Northwestern recalled. In 1993, Dold wrote a series of editorials exposing serious problems in the Illinois child welfare system, focusing on a 3-year-old boy name Joseph Wallace who was killed by his mother.

The editorials resulted in policy changes, and a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for Dold in 1994.

Dold wrote a column for the Tribune for five years, and also appeared frequently as a panelist on WTTW-Channel 11's "Chicago Week in Review" news analysis program with host Joel Weisman.

In 2000, Dold was promoted to editorial page editor. The Tribune editorial board won a dozen national awards, including a Pulitzer in 2003, Northwestern said.

Meanwhile, Dold interviewed an assortment of movers and shakers, from Mayor Rahm Emanuel to President Barack Obama — both before and after he was elected in 2008, Northwestern recalled. Dold also wrote the Tribune's 2008 endorsement of Obama for president, which marked the first time the Trib had endorsed a Democratic presidential nominee.

Dold was named editor-and-chief of the Tribune in 2016, and also as publisher soon afterward. The paper won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography and was a Pulitzer finalist for public service, investigative reporting, and commentary in Dold's first year at  the top of the masthead, Northwestern noted.

Dold stepped down from the Tribune in February 2020. He published the note he sent to the Tribune newsroom on Facebook at the time.

"I am in awe of all of you, the journalists in our newsroom, who show such commitment to this work and such resilience in the face of enormous challenges," Dold wrote. "You have embraced the race to a digital future. Even more important, you have enriched the lives of our readers and the larger community.

"Because of your work in recent years, pharmacies take better care of their patients, Chicago Public Schools students are better protected from predators, the local property tax system is fairer and more transparent, children are no longer subjected to the traumatic experience of isolation rooms," Dold continued in his 2020 note. "In countless other ways, you have made Chicago a better place."

Former Tribune columnist Eric Zorn worked with Dold for many years, and had Dold as his direct supervisor in the opinion section for seven. Zorn honored Dold in his "Picayune Sentinel" Substack on Thursday.

"He oversaw a collaborative, respectful, supportive and friendly working environment," Zorn wrote of Dold. "The bracing conversations he led during staff meetings were the highlight of my week, stimulating me to think more deeply about issues and, I like to think, to write better, more useful columns."

Tribune investigative reporter Gregory Royal Pratt honored Dold on Facebook.

"He was a real gentleman, an old school newsman who believed in holding government officials accountable without being cynical. He had strong source relationships with all sorts of people but he never let that interfere with accountability work," Pratt wrote. "Bruce was kind to his colleagues and patient. He stood up for our columnists when people didn't like their perspective and he stood up for the rights of people who didn't like their work to say so."

Former Tribune editor Hanke Gratteau also honored Dold: "The best friend, colleague, editor, supervisor, collaborator, dining companion, music curator, conversationalist, shoulder to cry on, cheerleader. We are going to miss him something awful."

The Tribune reported a memorial service is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 12.