Toronto Star editor Lew Gloin dies

Former Toronto Star  editor Lew Gloin died Friday, Feb. 18, at the Sunrise Senior Living residence in Aurora, the Toronto Star reports.

Born in in St. Thomas, Ont. on June 27, 1927, he worked at the St. Thomas Times-Journal, the Sarnia Observer and the Hamilton Daily News before joining the Star, his home for 25 years.

Gloin was hired by the Star as a copy editor in 1962, but was promoted to news editor and then later worked as the books section editor. In retirement, he continued to contribute a column to the paper called Words.

Star columnist Haroon Siddiqui will remember his late colleague for being ahead of his time. In a story that ran in Monday’s Star, Siddiqui recalls an incident where Gloin convinced editors to run a front page story about about “swarms of people buying lottery tickets in anticipation of a big payout in the 1980s.”

“Especially in those days, black line used to be reserved for serious matters — public policy, ponderous issues. And he said, ‘No. That’s what everyone is talking about. That’s the story… He had a good news instinct and he had a populist instinct.”

Though he battled dementia, Gloin was a newsman until the end. His daughter Christine recalls her father’s habit of circling noteworthy articles in The New Yorker and passing them along to friends.  

“That’s the thing I loved about him the most. He’d read something he really liked and thought I should read, he’d write it on the front of the magazine with the page number and it would get passed on. He’s done that his entire life… He knew things because he read about them, and he read everything — philosophy, history, archeology, politics, novels, cereal boxes. It was an absolute passion,” she told the Star.