John Lynch, former Daily Review publisher, dies at 83

John Lynch, the publisher of The Daily Review in the late 1960s and early 1970s, has died in North Carolina, where he had retired. He was 83.
Lynch was the publisher of The Daily Review from March 11, 1968, to Feb. 20, 1973, when Doyle “Red” Shirley acquired majority ownership of The Daily Review.
Lynch also served as president of the Louisiana Press Association.
Lynch went on to publish the Daily Comet in Thibodaux. Most recently, he served as publisher of the Wilmington, North Carolina, StarNews from 1987 to 2000.
The cause of Lynch's death was long-term pulmonary disease, said his son, Williams Brock Lynch of Wilmington, the StarNews reported.
John Lynch was from Goldsboro, where he got his first newspaper job as a reporter trainee. He later went to work for United Press International, working as a reporter in Alabama and Virginia and later becoming state news manager in Richmond, where he met his wife, Gloria.
After his tenure as publisher at The Daily Review, he published papers in Thibodaux and Houma before moving on to Wilmington.
During his 13 years at the StarNews, the Wilmington paper was owned by the New York Times.
The StarNews quoted Sherry Rich, retired human relations manager, as saying he was a pragmatic businessman known for reinvesting the paper’s profits back into the business.
“He was old-school,” said Jamie Moncrief, who worked under Lynch as the StarNews photo department chief in the 1990s.
“You know the expression, ‘Walk softly and carry a big stick?’ That was Dad,” said Lynch’s son, Brock. “I think the saying is, ‘We have two ears and one mouth’” so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. “He wasn’t necessarily a quiet person, but when it came to politics and the more emotional topics, he did a lot of listening. And when he spoke, he usually had something worth listening to.”
Lynch said his father sometimes took fire from the community for stories or editorials that would run in the StarNews. But, even when he didn’t agree with the stories himself, he stood by the paper’s right and duty to print them.
“He never wavered,” his son said. “That man stood by his principles of what journalism was ... If you didn’t want it in the paper, he’d say it probably needed to be in there.”
Lynch beat cancer twice, his son said, first in 2006, when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and again in 2015, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Beating lung cancer allowed him time to get to know his granddaughters, Carter and Luci, who he doted on, Brock Lynch said.
In addition to his son and granddaughters, Lynch is survived by his wife, Gloria “Glo” Lynch.