Gerould Kern, who led the Chicago Tribune through bankruptcy and into the digital age, announced his retirement and stepped down as editor, effective Wednesday.
Kern will be succeeded by Bruce Dold, the Tribune’s editorial page editor, who ascends to the top of the masthead after nearly four decades with the newspaper.
“We’re thrilled that Gerry gets to retire, which has been a long-standing discussion, and as happy that we have someone of Bruce’s caliber to become the editor of the Chicago Tribune,” said Tony Hunter, publisher of the Tribune.
Job one for Dold as top editor will be to “figure out all the moving parts” of the newsroom operation. He declined to reveal specific plans for the Chicago Tribune moving forward, but said key newsroom leaders will stay in their positions.
“I want to talk to everybody who’s running this news operation,” Dold said. “I’ve got plenty of ideas, but I want to be listening to folks first.”
Kern, 66, was named editor in July 2008. Under his leadership the Tribune expanded its print edition — bucking industry trends — while accelerating its transition to digital, despite navigating a protracted four-year Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2012, and was named a finalist nine times during his tenure.
He oversaw the successful integration of 38 suburban newspapers acquired from the Chicago Sun-Times in 2014, and extensive downsizing of the Tribune’s newsroom in face of secular industry declines, including a companywide buyout in the fall.
“Working at the Chicago Tribune has been the greatest honor of my professional career and I am extremely proud of what we accomplished during a very difficult period,” Kern said.
Kern’s retirement announcement comes less than two weeks after Michael Ferro, majority owner of the Sun-Times, became the largest shareholder of Tribune Publishing, buying a 16.6 percent stake in a $44.4 million deal. Chicago-based Tribune Publishing is the parent company of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other major daily newspapers.
Tribune spokesman Matt Hutchison said Kern’s retirement announcement and the plan of succession was in the works for over a year, and unrelated to Ferro’s recent acquisition.
Dold, 60, started at the Chicago Tribune as a reporter in 1978 and was appointed to the editorial board in 1990. He earned the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1994 and was named editorial page editor in 2000.
A graduate of Northwestern University, Dold said he “grew up” in the Chicago Tribune newsroom he will now oversee, covering the suburbs, City Hall and Springfield. He cited the Council Wars power struggle in the wake of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington’s November 1987 death as among his reporting highlights.
“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 said. “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 won the Pulitzer for his series on the murder of a 3-year-old boy by his abusive mother and the failure of the Illinois child welfare system to save him.
He said the connection between the editorial page and the frontline reporters will serve him well in his new role.
“I think a lot of what we’ve done on the editorial page has been in support of the best reporting from our newsroom,” Dold said.
John McCormick, deputy editorial page editor, will head up the editorial page until a permanent successor is named, Dold said.
An Indianapolis native and a 1971 graduate of Indiana University, Kern served as executive editor of the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald before joining the Tribune in 1991, where he held a number of senior editing roles.
Kern beefed up content while navigating the Chicago Tribune through bankruptcy, and faced new challenges under Tribune Publishing, the spun-off newspaper company that emerged in 2014, cutting costs and newsroom staff while accelerating the transition to a digital-first operation.
Other initiatives included launching content verticals such as Blue Sky Innovation and Printers Row, expanding opinion and commentary offerings and increasing emphasis on investigative reporting.
Kern said that after working for 45 years “without a real break,” he was looking forward to hitting the pause button.
“My wife retired three years ago,” Kern said. “She spends a lot of time waiting around for me. I want to have some free time.”
rchannick@tribpub.com
Twitter @RobertChannick
