Ron Kaye, the longtime editor of the Los Angeles Daily News known for his activism-driven anti-corruption efforts and his revitalization of the San Fernando Valley (including the failed attempt to secede from Los Angeles), has died. He was 83.

Kaye died early Friday at his home in Orange, Connecticut, his son Alfred confirmed to The Times. A cause of death was not determined, but Kaye had been suffering from a variety of age-related ailments.

After working for publications across the country and Australia, Kaye moved to Los Angeles, where he was editor of the Daily News from 1985. The Daily News was a gritty San Fernando Valley newspaper that prided itself on competing with the Los Angeles Times in reporting on police and local government, including city hall and school districts.

“Ron was a fiercely competitive and passionate editor who loved nothing more than to see his reporters beat other publications with local news,” said Beth Schuster, vice president of content strategy for USC Communications, who worked as a reporter for the Daily News from 1986 to 1991.

“We knew that behind that gruff exterior was a man who genuinely cared about people, the city he lived in and, above all, the newspaper business,” she said.

In the 1990s, Mr. Kaye exploited dissatisfaction among some Valley residents about the services they received from Los Angeles City Hall and whether they should have any dealings with the vast bureaucracy on the other side of the Hill. Mr. Kaye eventually became part of his (and his newspaper's) efforts to push for separation from the Valley, culminating in a citywide vote in 2002.

If the effort were successful, Valley-based newspapers would have benefited financially, but Kaye firmly believed the downtown bureaucracy was isolated and uninterested.

“In the Valley, we pay exorbitant taxes and still don't get our 'fair share' of city services,” Kaye said. I wrote in 2012, It's been 10 years since voters voted on whether to divide the city.

The measure narrowly passed in the San Fernando Valley but was defeated in other parts of the city after a much more heavily funded campaign by its opponents.

Kaye rose to the position of editor-in-chief but left the Daily News after 23 years in 2008, frustrated by cuts in staff and non-local management.

He also understood that journalism was facing bad tides.

“Newspapers don't have the money to allow competition, or even the pretense of competition,” Kaye said. I wrote in a column 2010. “Newspapers without competition can thrive for years, even in the face of the Internet and a shortage of younger readers. That's not the case with more than one newspaper.”

Ronald Allen Kay was born on May 7, 1941, in Chicago to Rose Lasky and Al Kay, a housewife and clothing salesman who, according to family members, emigrated from Russia and entered the country under the name Abraham Krakowski.

Kaye grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland and graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in anthropology in 1963 (he would later brag about graduating with the lowest GPA in American history). He began his journalism career at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, but was drafted into the Army and stationed in Alaska from 1966 to 1968.

His first wife, teacher Norma Catherine McLeod, died in 1987, and Kay became their son's primary carer, a role that Alfred says his father embraced.

Kay later married Deborah Reifman, a librarian at the Daily News.

Mr. Kaye's politics were varied and sometimes evolving: he described them as radical centrism, and at times he sounded like a white, middle-class, anti-government Silicon Valley conservative who was outraged by police misconduct against people of color.

In a column after he left the Daily News, he He talked about the early days of the Los Angeles Police Department. “A gang of hired thugs serving the interests of the rich and powerful, employed to enforce the thin line between those who matter and those who don't.”

His daily news is Police brutality against Rodney King and Rampart police corruption scandalIt earned him sometimes grudging praise from The Times.

At the Daily News, he wandered around the newsroom occasionally ringing a cowbell, but his outsized, sometimes bombastic, personality made him a perfect fit for the role.

Journalist Sarah Catania recalled a job interview she had in Mr Kaye's office in 1995.

“I first heard his 10-minute speech about the Times's arrogance, exhibitionism and laziness,” Catania wrote in a 2008 blog post. She reposted After learning of Kaye's death, he said: “This was before blogs and the internet, before everyone had an opinion worth listening to. I'd never heard anyone speak with such total disregard for the Times. It was a wonderful forbidden pleasure.”

At the time, Catania had just left a job as a junior reporter at The Times' Ventura County bureau.

“'So what do you think about that?'” Kaye asked after the fiery accusation, she said.

She responded that her reporting at the Times regularly outshone reporters at the rival Daily News.

Kay laughed and offered her the job.

Kaye was infuriated when reporter Greg Gittrich told him he would accept a full scholarship to Columbia University rather than continue breaking scoops about the scandal-ridden Belmont Learning Complex high school construction project.

“'You're not going to a top school to study journalism,' he yelled,” Gitrich recalled in a post on Kaye's Facebook page.

“This is a once in a lifetime story!” Mr. Kaye told him. “This is why people go to schools like Columbia, to get the chance to cover these things.”

Gitrich stayed on and continued his important work. After 16 months he left, but he didn't abandon Kaye completely. “He was like a father to me.”

After leaving the Daily News, Kaye found his voice through his own bylined op-eds in various publications and tried to organize grassroots coalitions to promote civic engagement. He moved to Connecticut in 2021 to be closer to his son's family.

In addition to his wife and son, Kay is survived by two grandchildren.