Former San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein has announced his resignation from Hearst Newspapers, ending a 31-year career as a city newsman. Bronstein, editor at large at Hearst Newspapers for the past four years, will remain in the news business. He is shifting into a larger role for the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Calif., where he is president of the board.

 

Bronstein joined the then-Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner as a reporter in 1980 and gravitated to investigative journalism and then foreign correspondence. His coverage of the fall of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He was also posted to El Salvador during that country's civil war and to Israel during the Gulf War.

 

But it was his accomplishments - and exploits - as an editor for the Examiner and The Chronicle that made the biggest waves.

 

His 17 years as editor included a tumultuous, 13-day strike at both papers in 1994 and the merger of the rival newsrooms after Hearst's purchase of The Chronicle in 2000. He presided over The Chronicle’s investigation into the BALCO drug scandal and guided the paper through its expansion into the Internet age and belt-tightening as the newspaper industry struggled.

 

As editor at large for the Hearst Newspapers Division, he directed investigative projects, worked on First Amendment issues, researched the convergence of technology and journalism, and wrote a column and blog for The Chronicle and SFGate.com.

 

--Jill Tucker, Chronicle staff writer