The Twin Cities media industry is mourning the loss of a respected investigative journalist. Paul McEnroe, a longtime reporter and producer for the Star Tribune and KSTP-TV, died Thursday after a bout with cancer. 

McEnroe, 69, passed away with his family at his side, at home in Stillwater, KSTP said. 

The newsman, who spent 35 years at the Star Tribune before ending his career as the investigative executive producer at KSTP-TV, was heralded for countless reporting breakthroughs, including helping break the 2016 story that the body of Jacob Wetterling had been found 27 years after his abduction. 

"McEnroe was always driven to make a difference. His reporting over the years certainly did, winning countless awards and touching many lives here in the Twin Cities," KSTP said. 

Word of the award-winning journalist's death has sparked dozens of tributes from admiring Twin Cities media members. 

"RIP Paul McEnroe, one of the all-time great @StarTribune reporters. Truly a legend with gumshoe tenacity, he could coax words out of a rock," wrote the Star Tribune's Jon Bream. 

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KSTP's Kevin Duran said "the world lost the greatest journalist I've ever had the honor of working with," adding that cancer marked the first time McEnroe's "ever been beaten by anything."

Chad Hartman, a WCCO radio host and son of legendary Star Tribune sports reporter Sid Hartman, wrote: "When I think of the best journalist I have met in my life, only one name comes to my mind, Paul McEnroe. He was a better person."

Patrick Reusse summed up McEnroe's tenacity as a reporter by calling him "The man several thousand bureaucrats didn't want to see walk through the door." 

The Star Tribune's lengthy feature on McEnroe's career can be read in full here.