Miami ? Tom Fiedler, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Herald executive editor who sparked an outcry in the city’s Cuban exile community by referring to critics of the paper as “Chihuahuas,” will retire at the end of February, the newspaper said Friday.

Fiedler, 60, will be replaced by Anders Gyllenhaal, editor and senior vice president of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis/St. Paul, the papers said. Both papers are owned by The McClatchy Co., which acquired the Herald earlier this year when it bought Knight-Ridder Inc.

Fiedler, who rose to national prominence in 1987 as a reporter during the Gary Hart scandal, has been executive editor since 2001. A message left for Fiedler by The Associated Press was not immediately returned. But in a statement on the Herald’s Web site, Fiedler said it was an honor to have led the Herald newsroom and to have worked as a journalist there.

David Wilson, managing editor for news, said the announcement was made Friday morning during a staff meeting. Fiedler had long said that “around this age and this stage it was his intention to retire,” Wilson told the AP.