He promised five years, and stayed for seven.

Early Wednesday, John Cruickshank announced he plans to step down as publisher of the Toronto Star and president of the Star Media Group as of May 4. The news was followed by a personal, anecdote-filled speech to the 200 staff who gathered in the newsroom mid-afternoon, where he recalled his recruitment to the paper and how even though, as an “outsider,” he found the Star “a tremendously welcoming place” when he arrived in January 2009.

“I found people here were avid for, anxious for, great journalism.”

Cruickshank, a reporter who worked his way up to senior management at the CBC, Vancouver Sun and Globe and Mail — and the Chicago Sun-Times, where he joked he “was the only one who wasn’t under FBI investigation at the time that they needed a new publisher.”

While he never envisioned himself as a publisher, “it certainly suited me, and nowhere more so than here,” Cruickshank told staff.

“Here, because we’ve been able to accomplish so much,” he said, referring to the Star’s investigation into former Toronto mayor Rob Ford and the now-infamous crack cocaine video.

“Imagine a novel where you take on the mayor of the city . . . and nobody believes you, for a year. And at the last moment, the police chief says ‘I’ve seen the tape, it’s true’ . . . it was so wonderful.”

Cruickshank thanked Torstar president and CEO David Holland, senior management and the board for their “tremendous support” in all endeavours.

“Every time we’ve tried to innovate and every time we’ve pushed through with a new idea, they’ve been there saying ‘yes, yes, let’s do that, it would be terrible not to have tried.’ That’s David’s line, and it’s a profound one.”

Holland, who will take over Cruickshank’s responsibilities on an interim basis, said “John’s leadership and strategic thinking in all aspects of the business have had a significant positive impact on Torstar. Again and again, he made the tough and innovative decisions necessary to move the Toronto Star forward in these challenging times.”

Cruickshank’s final day on the job coincides with Torstar’s annual meeting.

He will continue to serve as co-chairman of Canadian Press Enterprises and as one of Torstar’s directors on that board.

Cruickshank, 62, has said that it was time to turn the job over to someone with more “recently acquired tools and skills.”

With the launch of the Star Touch tablet-only daily news app last fall and a redesign of the Star’s website in its final stages, he said, “it just felt like the end of a chapter and the right time to pass it on.”

John Honderich, chair of the board of Torstar, said Cruickshank led the Star “to new editorial heights and our record in investigative reporting is second to none. At the same time, he has wisely and innovatively guided Star Media Group through one of the most tumultuous periods in its history. We owe him a great deal.”

Cruickshank told staff of his long relationship with editor Michael Cooke — the two first met in Montreal in 1979, going on to work as rivals and colleagues, developing “a trust in each other that goes beyond, I think, what you see in other operations.”

Cruickshank called being publisher at the Star a “tremendous experience . . . What a great ending to a career that’s now in its 40th year.

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“I promised five years,” he told staff. “I’ve now finished seven and I feel incredibly lucky because I’ve been surrounded by you through all of this.”