Gary Cohn, a longtime journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize as a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, died Dec. 23 at 72 after collapsing at a Los Angeles-area bookstore following a boxing class.

The cause of death is undetermined, according to his son, Jacob Cohn.

“He was a great dad,” said Jacob Cohn, a first-year medical student at the University of Pittsburgh. “He obviously had this huge career, but he always made time for me. He was always there. He came to all of my water polo games, even when I told him he didn’t have to because I probably wasn’t going to play. He would show up anyway. He always put me first. He was extremely optimistic and pushed me to see the good in everything.”

Cohn had a distinguished decades-long career as a journalist, working for the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky, The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times, in addition to The Sun. He was also a columnist for Jack Anderson, a nationally syndicated investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C.

Cohn and his Baltimore Sun colleague Will Englund won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for a series of stories on the international shipbreaking industry. The stories chronicled the perils faced by workers and the environmental impact of dismantling discarded ships.

The duo worked on the project for about 18 months, along with photographer Perry Thorsvik. Cohn focused on a yard in Wilmington, North Carolina, while Englund spent much of his time in Brownsville, Texas. Cohn also reported on officials from the Maritime Administration and the Navy.

“When I learned he would be working with me on the project, I didn’t know much about him except that he was said to be an impressive investigative reporter,” Englund said. “I thought he’d be swaggering and hard as nails, but nothing could have been further from the truth. When we’d interview someone together, we had a good-cop, sweeter-cop routine. He was great at schmoozing and sometimes used befuddlement as a very effective tool. He would use some version of, ‘Can you explain that again?’ — until we eventually got to the nub of the matter.”

Cohn was part of a large group of reporters and editors who came to The Baltimore Sun in the 1990s from The Philadelphia Inquirer. He quickly endeared himself to his new colleagues.

“Some of the newcomers weren’t very successful at masking a certain arrogance, but this was never true of Gary,” Englund said. “He was such a genuine guy that none of us Baltimore veterans could not like him, and I think he maybe more than anyone helped to bring the newsroom together, just by being himself.”

In 1996, Cohn was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories for The Baltimore Sun that revealed how a CIA-trained Honduran army unit — known as Battalion 316 — kidnapped, tortured and murdered political opponents in the 1980s with the knowledge of the CIA.

Ginger Thompson, who worked with Cohn for 18 months on the Honduras project, called him a “relentless” and “tireless” reporter. Thompson, based in Latin America at the time, said Cohn was cultivating sources in Washington.

“During that 18-month period, we spoke probably every day,” said Thompson, who also served as the Mexico City bureau chief for The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times. “Gary was a very close reporting partner. We talked about every move we were going to make, every interview we were going to do, every document we were looking for, every person we were looking for.”

Thompson remembered that Cohn enjoyed going to the gym and playing basketball, but his true passion was journalism.

“He never gave up when it came to figuring out how to get the information he needed to tell stories in ways that were groundbreaking,” said Thompson, who was part of a Pulitzer-winning team at The New York Times in 2001 for the series “How Race Is Lived in America.”

Bill Marimow, former editor of The Baltimore Sun and The Philadelphia Inquirer, worked with Cohn at both newspapers. He remembered Cohn as a highly skilled investigative reporter and a fierce competitor on the racquetball and tennis courts.

While Cohn often forgot to tuck in his shirt in the newsroom, Marimow said his mind was like a “steel trap” when it came to reporting.

“The great thing about Gary was that as intense and tenacious as he was in pursuit of a story, he was incredibly generous, thoughtful and loyal as a friend,” Marimow said. “Some of those qualities that made him a great reporter also made him a great friend.”

In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Cohn won numerous national journalism awards, including the Edward W. Scripps First Amendment Award, the Selden Ring Award, a George Polk Award for environmental reporting and the Overseas Press Club of America Award.

“Gary was dogged in his pursuit of a story and a genuine mensch of a guy to his newsroom colleagues, warm and caring,” said Ann Lolordo, a former Middle East correspondent and national reporter who worked with Cohn at The Baltimore Sun in the 1990s.

Cohn was a longtime adjunct professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where he taught news writing and investigative reporting.

Cohn was born in Brooklyn and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and political science at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He completed the first year of law school at the University of California at Berkeley before launching his career as a journalist.

“He used to joke that he was on the longest leave of absence in the history of the law school,” Marimow said.

A memorial service will be held Sunday, Dec. 29, in Santa Monica, Calif.

Have a news tip? Contact Todd Karpovich at tkarpovich@baltsun.com or on X as @ToddKarpovich.