During his tenure at the
Tribune, Bliss concentrated his efforts on unearthing corruption and government waste. In 1950, he broke the story of rampant sexual and physical abuse at the
Cook County juvenile home. His 1961 series on massive corruption at the Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago won him the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for
Local Reporting. Bliss had discovered that the department had been paying salaries to people not even employed. In 1968, the
Tribune refused to let Bliss publish a story on
Illinois Secretary of State Paul Powell taking bribes. Bliss left the newspaper and went to work for a local non-profit, the
Better Government Association. In 1971, he uncovered corruption in the city's ambulance companies which helped reporter William Jones win a
1971 Pulitzer Prize. After the shootings of
Fred Hampton and
Mark Clark in 1969, the
Tribune developed a reputation for being a pro-establishment newspaper. They rehired Bliss in October 1971 to counter this image. He immediately began researching police brutality complaints against the
Chicago Police Department, which resulted in charges filed against several Chicago police officers. He then led an investigation into the
1972 election, which uncovered evidence of missing and forged ballots. The
Tribune was awarded a
1973 Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of this voter fraud. In 1974, he published his first story on fraudster
Linda Taylor, part of his focus on mismanagement within the
Illinois Department of Public Aid. One of his most extensive series was co-authored with five
Tribune reporters, including
Chuck Neubauer. The team's investigation uncovered a conspiracy between mortgage companies and the
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to defraud American taxpayers. The investigative team won the
1976 Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting. Bliss was famous for cultivating an image as an "old-time" reporter, wearing a fedora and oversized suits and writing all his stories on an old
Royal typewriter. He would sometimes even impersonate police officers or coroners to chase down leads. An estimated 100 criminal convictions resulted from his news pieces. ==Death and legacy==