Former LA Daily News Editor Ron Kaye dies at 83

Former Los Angeles Daily News Editor Ron Kaye has died, according to a social media post from his son, Alfred.

Kaye, 83, died Thursday evening at his home in Orange, Conn., according to family.

“Every parent is a larger than life figure to their children,” said his son in a tribute posted on Facebook. “But Ron was a 1 of 1: a muckraking journalist, an independent thinker, a warm and emotionally connected father and grandfather, an intellectual, and a believer in the Dionysian spirit in life. He enjoyed life to the last, celebrating my birthday with me this weekend over omakase sushi and sake, and having his grandchildren over after summer camp on Tuesday. “

Kaye worked at the Daily News for 23 years, arriving at the newspaper in 1985 as an assistant city editor. He became managing editor at the newspaper in 1993 and was named editor in 2005.

“All good things in life come to an end sooner or later, even my love affair with the Daily News,” Kaye said in a message to the newsroom when he departed the newspaper in 2008. “What will always be with me is my love and respect for all of you.”

During his tenure, Kaye became the public face of the newspaper, and his bombastic personality and relentless criticism of key figures at City Hall shaped the Opinion-page mission of the paper.

“A lot of political figures thought Ron was being unfair or hard on them,” said Rick Orlov, longtime Daily News political reporter and columnist, when Kaye departed the Daily News in 2008. “What he was trying to do was make them look at what they’re doing and how it was affecting the middle-class and working-class families of the San Fernando Valley.” Orlov passed away in 2015.

“Ron, and his time and place, were made for each other,” said longtime Southern California News Group reporter and editor Kevin Modesti. “He was the loudest voice in the newsroom back when that was a boisterous scene.”

Modesti, whose bylines ranged from the sports pages to Metro pages, was a sportswriter and sports columnist in the Kaye era.

“Ron’s sermons on journalism, politics, even sports, could be so soaring and philosophical that I sometimes walked away unsure what he’d just told me,” Modesti said. “But I always left more fired up about my mission — whatever it was.”

“He was one hell of a newspaperman,” said Dennis McCarthy, a Daily News reporter and columnist for decades.

“Ron stepped on a lot of big toes in this town looking for the truth,” McCarthy added. “Pity the politician or bureaucrat who tried to slip a lie by him. He wasn’t afraid to climb in the ring with any of them. The way he saw it, his job was to make sure the game wasn’t rigged, that the little guy got a fair shake. Those were his marching orders to every reporter who had the privilege of working with him.”

Longtime Daily News Photo Editor Dean Musgrove worked with Kaye at the newspaper, as well as at the L.A. Herald Examiner, which closed in 1989.

“I knew and appreciated Ron Kaye’s passion and demand for powerful journalism, from our early days working on the weekend desk at the Herald Examiner to our journey to the Los Angeles Daily News where he later became our editor,” said Musgrove.

Musgrove added: “The Daily News staff will forever remember Ron for his demand for “more cowbell!’  It was a catchphrase he adapted from the sketch on Saturday Night Live and would roam the newsroom with a drumstick and cowbell in hand.”

During his tenure at the Daily News, the newspaper was deeply involved in San Fernando Valley leaders’ bid to secede from the city of L.A. The political movement in the early 2000s inevitably failed at the polls — 50.7 percent of Valley voters cast their ballots for cityhood, but the initiative was turned away by voters citywide.

“As managing editor of the Daily News at the time, I believed the Valley had to stand up for itself and demand respect from City Hall,” Kaye wrote in a column marking the 10th anniversary of the secession movement. “Secession was the best available tool to achieve that whether it succeeded or failed.”

Those who worked with him witnessed Kaye’s feisty watchdog spirit up close.

“He was tough and prickly, but a solid newsman,” said Bill Van Laningham, who retired in June as the Southern California News Group’s vice president of marketing, and who started his career with the L.A. Daily News 43 years ago. “He didn’t suffer fools and he made all of us on the business side want to up our game and properly represent, promote and support the great work of our journalists and the newsroom … The Daily News and the San Fernando Valley were better because of him.”

After departing the Daily News, Kaye became a blogger, columnist and activist who described himself as “working hard to get community groups of all types to come together with a common agenda with the common goal of making Los Angeles a better city.”

“Within the microcosm of Los Angeles, he sought to find a balance between those forces, pushing forward coverage of major issues such as police violence towards Rodney King as well as advocating for the interests of the “everyman” of the San Fernando Valley,” his son said. “After his retirement, he developed a political blog where he became an even more unrestricted critic of public officials.”

Prior to his time at the Daily News, Kaye worked as a reporter and editor at The Associated Press, Newsweek, the National Enquirer and the L.A. Herald-Examiner.

Ron grew up in a Jewish family in suburban Cleveland, according to his son. He studied anthropology at the University of Chicago.

He started his news career at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, but was subsequently drafted into the Army. During the Vietnam War, he was stationed in Alaska, where he later worked at small newspapers in Yakima and Fairbanks.

“He loved the people he worked with and mentored,” said his son, “and still talked about their current careers and trajectories with pride until his passing.”

“Ron was incredibly warm and nurturing but when he demanded, he was the lion with that roar that got everyone’s attention and all of us back on track,” said Musgrove. “He will be missed by so many.”

Kaye is survived by his wife Deborah, son Alfred and grandchildren Dash and Theo.

Plans for a celebration of life will be shared when they are available, his son said.

“Ron’s love extended beyond the newsroom to his dedication to his wife Deborah — whom he met at the Daily News — and son Alfred, he was so extremely proud of his life with them,” said Musgrove.

Senior Editor Tom Bray contributed to this article.