C. David Burgin, editor often brought in to save troubled newspapers, dies at 75

HOUSTON – C. David Burgin, an editor often brought in to revive declining newspapers, has died in Houston at the age of 75.

His wife, Judy Burgin, said he died Monday at his Houston home after a lengthy illness.

His first top management jobs came at The Washington Star, where he rose through the ranks of sports editor and city editor to assistant managing editor and hired such young talent as Maureen Dowd and Ira Berkow. He talked two Washington bartenders, future Boston Globe business writer Chris Reidy and future Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Daley, into trying newspaper work.

He later ran the San Francisco Examiner and the Orlando Sentinel before editing the Dallas Times Herald and The Houston Post before they folded in the early 1990s.