Toronto Sun co-founder Peter Worthington dies at 86

Veteran newspaperman Peter Worthington has died at the age of 86.

TORONTO, Ontario -- Peter Worthington, the veteran newspaperman who co-founded the Toronto Sun, has died. He was 86.

His wife, Yvonne Crittenden, confirmed that her husband died on Sunday night.

The Toronto Sun said Monday on its website that Worthington was admitted to Toronto General Hospital last Thursday and diagnosed with a serious staph infection that compromised his heart, kidneys and other organs.

The Sun said he passed away in hospital, surrounded by his wife and family, including his grandchildren.

A former military man, Worthington made a name for himself as a reporter at the Toronto Telegram by covering conflicts such as the Vietnam War and the Portuguese Colonial War, the paper said.

Worthington, along with J. Douglas Creighton and Don Hunt, founded the Sun in 1971, along with about 60 former staff members when the Telegram shut down.

He served as executive editor and editor-in-chief of the paper, and also made two unsuccessful runs for political office.

During his career, he won four National Newspaper Awards, a National Newspaper Citation and was also named to the Canadian News Hall of Fame, the Sun said.

Worthington's son-in-law, journalist and author David Frum, posted a tribute to the iconic news man on the website The Daily Beast.

In it, he recalled how his father-in-law witnessed Jack Ruby fatally shooting Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of assassinating U.S. president John F. Kennedy, in a Dallas police station on Nov. 24, 1963 -- and that his immediate reaction was to run toward the shots.

That, Frum wrote, "was his characteristic response to danger of every kind."

"He told me in our last talk that in all the hazards he had met in his life, he had never been afraid. He had sometimes felt nerves, he said, but not fear," Frum said in the piece.

Many took to social media to pay their respects to one of Canada's best-known war correspondents.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed his grief on Twitter, as did several current and former Sun employees.

"Saddened to hear of the passing of Peter Worthington, a true Canadian patriot. Rest In Peace," Harper wrote.

"We lost a legend and a giant of our industry," tweeted Sun Media photographer Dave Abel.

Yet the tabloid magnate will get the final word on his death, his son-in-law wrote, noting Worthington once again "scooped us all" -- this time by writing his own obituary, set to run in the Sun on Tuesday.