June 11, 2013 — A legendary newsman whose dogged work reformed Beacon Hill while earning him a reputation as a fearless reporter, was in his “second act” friends said, taking on federal fishing regulations in his adopted city of Gloucester when he died at his home Sunday.
Richard Gaines, 69, had two stories that ran in yesterday’s edition of his newspaper, The Gloucester Daily Times. He had written them Friday, his editor, Ray Lamont said.
“He was an absolute champion of the underdog. No one personifies an underdog today more than your rank-and-file fisherman,” Lamont said. “I think it’s a pretty impressive tribute to his legacy that people were reading his writing at the same time they were reading about his passing. I’m sure it’s a little eerie. He was dedicated to the end.”
Nancy Gaines, his wife and colleague, said while he loved his craft, he was just as devoted to his home and family.
“He wanted to be remembered as an iconoclast, as a fearless, crusading reporter, from the UPI to the Boston Phoenix, to the Gloucester Times, and extraordinarily tender at home and hearth,” she said. “The two sides of him.”
She said though he was a native of New York state, he loved his Gloucester home, a community where he had spent summers since he was a child.
Gaines had already amassed a solid resume as an investigative reporter at UPI and a Phoenix editor when he moved to the fishing town, said his friend, Boston Herald executive editor John Strahinich.
“Richard had the heart and soul of an old school newspaperman. He lived by the standard of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable,” Strahinich said. “At the time of his death, he was doing what he loved most, digging into a story he owned — the plight of Gloucester fishermen. They will miss him, and so will journalists everywhere.
Read the full story at the Boston Herald