Richard Henry Fogel, co-founder of San Francisco’s Bay City News Service and former executive editor of the Oakland Tribune, died Wednesday in Thousand Oaks. He was 86.

An advocate on issues relating to the public’s right to access government information, Fogel worked with other journalists and news organizations across the country to craft the basic principles of what would later become the landmark Freedom of Information Act.

After serving in World War II, Fogel returned to Stanford University, where he served as night editor for the Stanford Daily and interned as a reporter for the San Francisco News. Fogel graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1947 and worked as a correspondent and staff writer for UPI. He moved to Oakland in 1948 and joined the Oakland Tribune as a copy editor. He worked his way up through the ranks over the next three decades, ultimately serving as the paper’s executive editor.

Along with his wife Marcia Schwalbe Fogel, business partner Wayne Futak and associate Joann Sutro, Fogel in 1978 launched BCN. [More]