SEBASTOPOL, California (AP) – Leroy F. Aarons, a former national correspondent for The Washington Post and executive editor of the Oakland Tribune who founded the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, has died. He was 70.

Aarons died Nov. 28 after a year-long battle with bladder cancer, according to his friend Charles Kaiser, a founder and former president of the association’s New York chapter.

As a founding member of both the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in the 1970s and then the NLGJA in 1990, Aarons was at the forefront of efforts nationwide to combat ethnic and sexual discrimination in journalism.

“His commitment to gay issues helped raise the consciousness of the entire country,” said longtime NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, a friend and former colleague.

Aarons served as a national correspondent and editor at the Post for 14 years, including during the Watergate scandal that led to the 1974 resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.

In 1982, he spent a year in Israel as a freelancer for Time magazine. In 1983, he joined the Oakland Tribune as features editor. In 1985, he was named executive editor, and in 1988 senior vice president for news. During his tenure, the Tribune won the Pulitzer Prize for its photojournalism during the 1989 earthquake.

Aarons coordinated a survey, commissioned by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, that examined the lives of gay and lesbian journalists at American newspapers. In presenting the survey findings at ASNE’S convention in April 1990, he also publicly came out as gay.

A few months later, he hosted a gathering of six other journalists at his home to found the NLGJA. The organization now has more than 1,200 members in 24 chapters across the United States.

In recent years, Aarons published a nonfiction book, Prayers for Bobby, about a mother’s grief over her gay son’s suicide.

“Roy was not only a great leader and great spokesman for gays and lesbians in the journalism game, but he was also a good man and a good friend. I learned an enormous amount from him about his values and a lot that is reflected in the values of the New York Times,” said Times publisher and chair Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. “There’s no question that Roy was an important force in journalism.”