''His commitment to gay issues helped raise the consciousness of the entire country," said longtime NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw, a friend and former colleague.
Mr. Aarons served as a national correspondent and editor at the Post for 14 years, including during the Watergate scandal that led to the 1974 resignation of President Nixon.
In 1982, he spent a year in Israel as a freelancer for Time magazine. In 1983, he joined the Oakland Tribune as features editor. In 1985, he was named executive editor, and in 1988 senior vice president for news. During his tenure, the Tribune won the Pulitzer Prize for its photojournalism during the 1989 earthquake.
Mr. Aarons coordinated a survey, commissioned by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, that examined the lives of gay and lesbian journalists at American newspapers. In presenting the survey findings at the society's convention in April 1990, he also publicly came out as gay.
A few months later, he hosted a gathering of six other journalists at his home to found the gay journals association. The organization now has more than 1,200 members in 24 chapters across the United States.
In recent years, Mr. Aarons published a nonfiction book, ''Prayers for Bobby," about a mother's grief over her gay son's suicide.
''Roy was not only a great leader and great spokesman for gays and lesbians in the journalism game, but he was also a good man and a good friend. I learned an enormous amount from him about his values and a lot that is reflected in the values of The New York Times," said Times publisher and chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. ''There's no question that Roy was an important force in journalism."
