The International Press Institute (IPI) this week mourned the passing of respected journalist and long-time IPI member Stuart Loory, who died of lung cancer on Friday at his home in Brooklyn.

A member of the board of IPI’s North American Committee since 2004, Loory, 82 was widely known for his work as a White House and Moscow correspondent for major U.S. newspapers in the 1960s and ’70s, and for later helping to build CNN.

IPI Executive Board Member Marty Steffens, a Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) endowed chair at the University of Missouri who served with Loory on the North American Committee board, remembered him as “a journalist who never shied from controversy, and above all, sought to inform Americans about the wider world”. She added: “He was a passionate champion of press freedom, and the role of journalists on the international stage. I was honored to be his academic colleague, his friend, and to follow in his footsteps at IPI.”

Born in Pennsylvania, Loory grew up in Dover, New Jersey and earned a master’s degree from Columbia University’s journalism school after attending Cornell University, where he was editor of the school’s newspaper. He began his career at the Newark Evening News and later joined the New York Herald Tribune, which took him to posts in Washington, D.C. and Moscow.

Loory taught journalism at Ohio State University in the early 1970s before joining the Los Angeles Times, where he covered the White House and where his name was added to President Nixon’s “enemies” list. He later served as managing editor of the Chicago Sun-Times and then in 1980 joined the then-newly launched CNN, serving in a number of roles, including heading the broadcaster’s Washington bureau and opening its Moscow bureau.

Following his retirement in 1997 as executive vice president of Turner International Broadcasting in Russia, Loory became a journalism professor at the University of Missouri, where he edited the magazine Global Journalist and launched the radio show of the same name. The publication, which started its life as the IPI Report, served as a tool to teach students how to produce a magazine and took on a life of its own after becoming affiliated with the university and changing its name in 2000.

Loory also was “a great supporter of IPI”, British journalist and former IPI Executive Board Chair Peter Preston recalled, attending IPI events around the world with his wife, Nina Kudriavtseva-Loory, whom he met at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

“Stuart Loory was a dedicated, very skilled journalist who became a great teacher of journalism…,” Preston said. “For years he produced Missouri University’s Global Journalist, giving his students a chance to do something utterly professional and, for a time, hand Vienna a wonderful communications resource. I wrote for that magazine over years, writing a column about our changing trade. But one thing, Stu – with the dynamic Nina at his side – never did was change. He always gave 100 percent. He always believed in and taught the best journalism. He was small and wry in person: but in impact big, and utterly committed.”

As an active IPI member, he also looked out for his IPI colleagues. Palestinian media consultant Walid Batrawi recalled encountering Loory while working as a freelance journalist in Missouri.

“It was two days after arriving in Columbia, Missouri that I met Stu,” Batrawi recounted. “He approached me saying he knew me. I thought where on earth we could have met. He reminded me that we sat next to each other in the IPI Moscow Congress. And indeed I remembered him. We had a short chat that ended by inviting me to join the team of the IPI Global Journalist and this was the start of a long-lasting professional relationship and friendship. He was a friend to the family.”

Even as he battled cancer, Loory remained enthusiastic about resuming his active role as a member of the board of IPI’s North American Committee, Committee Chair and Miami Herald World Editor John Yearwood recalled.

“Stu was a great journalist and a strong advocate for our work at IPI,” Yearwood, who is also a vice chair of IPI’s Executive Board, said. “We’ll miss him dearly. Nina and the rest of Stu’s family are in our prayers.”

Loory is survived by his wife, three children from a previous marriage, a stepson, a brother and eight grandchildren.

Global Journalist, in a tribute to Loory, said that services for close friends and family were to be held yesterday in Brooklyn, but a memorial service to celebrate his professional career is expected to be announced in the future.