Bernie Judge, editor at Sun-Times, City News Bureau, Tribune, dies at 79

Bernie Judge was a two-fisted fighter to the end.

The gravel-voiced former reporter and editor, known for his willingness to go to the mat —for a story, for his reporters and for his family — died Friday morning at his home in Chicago of pancreatic cancer. He was 79.

Mr. Judge was a top editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, City News Bureau and Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. In 2012, he was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to serve as commissioner of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.

Mr. Judge’s tenure in journalism, beginning when cigarette butts covered the floors, manual typewriters thundered away and “everyone yelled at everyone,” is the stuff of reporter lore.

He was “the last newsman who could fight his way out of a bar,” Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown said — perhaps a nod to Mr. Judge’s fight with Mike Royko at the Billy Goat Tavern.

That story, which everyone recalls and no one will recount, would have embarrassed Mr. Judge, said political strategist David Axelrod, who worked under him at the Chicago Tribune.

“He never went looking for fights, but he never ducked one,” Axelrod said. “He was a guy with a great deal of humanity. He really cared about the people who worked for him and would go to bat for them.”

It was those fights — sans fists — that endeared Mr. Judge to many of his former colleagues. The sparring matches with editors, advertisers and politicians were always in defense of his reporters, the story and the pursuit of truth.

“One of the things with Bernie is, if you were right, he backed you up, no matter who was complaining,” said Chuck Neubauer, a former Tribune and Sun-Times reporter.

Neubauer recalled one night, he and Mr. Judge were working late at Tribune Tower when they looked up to see then-Attorney General Bill Scott, apparently upset about a story, walking into the newsroom.

When Scott complained, “Bernie said ‘Well, OK, show me what’s wrong in the story,’” Neubauer recalled. When Scott couldn’t point to an inaccuracy, Mr. Judge pointed to the door.

“He threw the AG out of the office.”

Two projects Mr. Judge oversaw at the paper won the Tribune a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for abuses in federal housing programs in Chicago and conditions at two private hospitals, according to the Pulitzer website.

Born Bernard Martin Judge and raised on the South Side, he attended Our Lady of Peace Catholic School and Leo Catholic High School before a move to Oak Park led him to Fenwick High School — an opportunity he never forgot.

“He really felt like Fenwick molded him,” said his daughter, Kelly Goldberg. “He credited the nuns for his tight writing.”

After stints in the Army and at the former U.S. Steel South Works, Mr. Judge found his calling as a dogged reporter and cut his teeth at City News Bureau, where he was hired in 1965.

He married his wife, Kimbeth Judge, the following year.

“I married a storm,” his wife of more than 50 years said Friday. “Our life together was always exciting, tumultuous and full of the unexpected.”

Donna Gill, who worked with Mr. Judge when he later moved to the Chicago Tribune as a crime and courts reporter, recalled him as “a good looking, young, feisty Irish kid, and very funny.”

“Bernie’s rapport with people was just beautiful,” Gill said. “He remembered everyone he met and remembered everything they ever told him.”

Those abilities would bring him to the Chicago Sun-Times in 1984 as metropolitan editor at a tumultuous time, his friends said. Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch had bought the paper, and Mr. Judge’s Chicago bonafides and journalism chops were welcomed.

“There was no better place to learn investigative reporting than Chicago and no better teacher than Bernie,” said Pulitzer Prize-winner and University of Maryland professor Deborah Nelson, a former Sun-Times reporter. “He loved Chicago and he knew Chicago, and he didn’t let anyone stand in the way of getting the truth.”

Later, at the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Mr. Judge would infuse the paper with “a sense of daily journalism,” according to Abdon Pallasch, who worked at the sister publication, Chicago Lawyer.

Mr. Judge, who believed in the justice system — as well as his role as its watchdog — brought that passion to the paper and turned the monthly magazine into a standard for in-depth, investigative reporting.

“He knew which judges were full of hot air; he had all the relationships,” Pallasch said.

Readers of the Law Bulletin knew Mr. Judge would be hard, but fair. Those traits made him perfect for his work after retirement as a trial judge on attorney disciplinary cases, his son-in-law Michael Goldberg said.

“He was perfect for the position because he wasn’t a lawyer, but he knew the community,” Goldberg said of Mr. Judge’s work with the commission.

He also is survived by three children, Bernard R. Judge, Jessica Schott and Kelly Goldberg; five grandchildren, Declan, Henry, Ava, Daniel and Isabella; and two sisters, Mary Supina and Cathy Judge Gallagher. A funeral Mass will be held at noon on June 22 at St. Giles Catholic Parish in Oak Park.