The passing at age 87 Friday of Walter Mears, the Pulitzer-Prize winning political reporter for the Associated Press, marks an irreplaceable loss in the long annals of American journalism.

Mears, the best practitioner of spot-news coverage of his time, set the gold standard for speed and accuracy. He was acknowledged as the sharpest composer of daily news, with the fastest fingers on an old portable typewriter, the leader of the pack of ink-stained wretches who constituted that gritty fraternity over half a century of news-gathering.

Walter was my best pal and competitor in the pell-mell daily race against the clock, showing the rest of us by example how to keep American readers informed in a timely and dependable fashion.

From the earliest days, we all looked to Walter to determine daily what was most important. It was so from the time one of us asked him on a campaign bus about a breaking news story: “What’s the lead, Walter?” He was invariably right, and willing to share his wisdom. He always did so, not as some infallible superior, but as just another boy on the bus doing his job.

There were of light moments amid the labors to bring the most important campaign news to the world beyond, and Mears was always in the thick of it despite his weighty responsibility.

Walter and I jointly wrote lyrics to popular songs poking fun at presidential candidates like George McGovern and sang them to them between events. Walter and his good friend John Chancellor of NBC News wrote an excellent book advising young reporters on the finer points of their trade.

Among the minor figures in the pack was the wife of a reporter who bore a striking resemblance of George Washington as seen on the one-dollar bill. On a trip to China, one of our number showed the likeness to one of our Chinese hosts, implying it was her on the bill.

One of the prime targets of our juvenile high-jinks was the often officious New York Times political reporter R.W. “Johnny” Apple. One night, Mears and I were in the fancy Savoy Grill in Kansas City without a reservation. We spotted the name “Apple” on the list of diners expected, identified ourselves as “the Apple party” and were shown a table in the main room.

Minutes later, Apple arrived and was offered a table in an adjacent room, to his immediate cry of outrage. To add insult to injury, we had a flat bottle of the cheapest domestic white wine sent to him, as one who prided himself as a connoisseur of the grape. Another cry of protest ensued to our caper.

But it was Walter’s customary diligent attention to his professional stature as the most dependable reporter in the fraternity that counted. Walter was the best that our era of American journalism had to offer, and we feel his loss deeply.

Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcover@comcast.net.