His 1961 series on massive corruption at the Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago won him the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting.
In 1968, the Tribune refused to let Bliss publish a story on Illinois Secretary of State Paul Powell taking bribes.
In 1971, he uncovered corruption in the city's ambulance companies which helped reporter William Jones win a 1971 Pulitzer Prize.
In 1974, he published his first story on fraudster Linda Taylor, part of his focus on mismanagement within the Illinois Department of Public Aid.
The team's investigation uncovered a conspiracy between mortgage companies and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to defraud American taxpayers.
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.