'It's been a great ride': The story behind Daily News' Sean Flynn's 37 years in journalism

Sean Flynn's newspaper career is bookended by birthdays.

He started at the Fall River Herald News on Feb. 11, 1985, on the day he turned 36. He retires from The Newport Daily News this Friday, Feb. 11, on the day he turns 73.

"I think it's time," Flynn said recently. "It's been a great ride. It's a job where you're always learning new things and you're teaching yourself new things. Not all jobs are like that."

Flynn joined The Daily News staff in June, 2004, when reporter Wendy Fontaine moved on. It was his third news job, coming after four years at the Brockton Enterprise in Massachusetts and 17 in Fall River before that.

"They were all very different," he said of the cities. "Newport is a beautiful place. I enjoyed the commitment to historic preservation. I liked writing about the longtime families. Things in Newport are very interconnected."

Flynn has no interest in self-promotion. He liked to do his job with no fanfare. Naturally, he was reluctant to take part in this retirement story.

He'd have been happy to stroll out of The Daily News newsroom on Friday with a quick nod and a wave, vanishing like a Stealth Ninja.

"To say he is a Swiss Army knife of reporters is beyond an understatement. Sean is extremely productive," said Scott Barrett, the paper's digital editor. "His stories are extremely detailed and comprehensive. And he gets the job done quietly with no fuss. As a reporter, he has a wide range. And he won't stop until he gets the story. He will be extremely missed."

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City Hall was Flynn's main beat for 17 years. In the newsroom at night, you'd hear him calling a City Council member in order to double check (triple check, quadruple check?) facts or get another morsel of information.

Barrett once heard a story of an official closing his City Hall door when he spied Flynn entering the building. "People knew he was coming in and he was going to get the story," Barrett recalled.

Who was Sean Flynn before he entered journalism?

A longtime Tiverton resident, Flynn might be publicity-shy, but his career and life are worth telling. He was born in Washington, D.C., but raised in Concord, Massachusetts, the oldest of eight children.

His father, John Joseph Flynn, worked as a State Department courier in World War II (polio as a teenager kept him out of the military), traveling the world. He graduated from the Georgetown University Foreign Service School with a bachelor's degree and later attended Georgetown University Law School but left without a degree. He continued with the State Department, eventually heading the Boston passport office.

Flynn's mother, Ann Williams Flynn, graduated from the University of New Hampshire and served in the Marine Corps. She stayed at home with the children and later worked in business.

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As a boy, young Sean was curious, an avid reader: "I read Landmark Books. They were biographies for kids about historical figures. And I read the Hardy Boys, too, like a lot of kids."

After high school, Flynn attended to the University of Wisconsin. It was the era of campus upheaval and student protest. He left early to attend Antioch College in Ohio. A year-abroad program took him to London, and he transferred to the University of Munich, eventually earning a master's degree in communications and political science.

He stayed overseas for 13 years, logging time mainly in Germany, with stays in Israel and frequent visits to Italy. He is fluent in German and learned basic Hebrew, which had its advantages.

Flynn worked for a German film company called Bavaria, handling a host of tasks, including office work and construction. When actor Roger Moore (who at one time played James Bond) was filming a movie, Moore had Flynn scan the German tabloids.

"He wanted to know what they were saying about him," Flynn said. "I was his translator in a way."

Flynn began writing for a general interest magazine, the Anglo-American Spotlight. It was his introduction to journalism.

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As a young man, Flynn had a restless/adventurous streak. That meant living in Israel in a kibbutz, a communal settlement. This was in the early 1970s, and Flynn later roomed in the Sinai Desert with a Bedouin, a nomadic desert traveler. They were both working in Sharm-el-Sheik. And he rode camels with other Bedouins.

They were great traveling companions, but shut off from the greater world. One clear-skied night, Flynn looked at the moon and mentioned that three Americans (from Apollo 11) had landed on there.

"They all laughed hysterically," Flynn recalled. "They said they looked at that moon each night and never saw three people.They had no idea. They didn't believe it."

A near-death experience in Germany

You can know Flynn for years before you hear the following tale. At age 34, he went skiing in Germany with friends and his then-wife.

"We were climbing this mountain on touring skis, kind of zigzagging through the snow," he said. "And then an avalanche hit us and I was buried."

Flynn had studied avalanches (of course) and clasped his arms behind his head and bent over. He tried to create an air pocket so he could breathe.

"Fortunately, another group of skiers had been watching us through binoculars and came over to rescue us. They dug me out last. They'd seen me fly through the air and hit rocks. They just assumed I was dead."

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While buried, Flynn became resigned to death. "At first you're hysterical and panicking. Then there's a sense of calm and then acceptance. I was ready to just fall asleep."

But the rescuers beat death in the foot race. Flynn was hospitalized for a month in a leg cast and underwent physical therapy after the hospital stay.

The avalanche shattered one of his knees. Doctors feared he'd never straighten that leg again, but eventually he managed a full pedal rotation on a stationary bike and improved from there.

"It was a tough time in my life," he recalled. "I was unemployed for so long that year. It was difficult."

And his marriage broke up. After his hospital stay, Flynn began a relationship with one of the nurses who treated him. From that experience came his son, Dennis, 32, now a TV sports producer/reporter in Germany. He visits the United States in order to produce pieces on the NFL.

"He visits us here often," Flynn said. "He and my other kids have become very close."

A move to journalism and starting a family

Flynn was preparing to tutor English to university students in Italy when he learned his 61-year-old father had suffered a stroke. He flew home and his father died a month later. He dusted off his old magazine clippings and landed the reporting job in Fall River.

That's where Pam Berard, who worked the night shift as an editor, met him. When she showed up at the office, Flynn was usually still at his desk, hours after his first shift officially ended, digging up a story.

Flynn was a reporter who never wanted to be part of the story. "He had a quiet demeanor that made him the ultimate observer," Berard said.

Berard became city editor at The Newport Daily News in the early 2000s. When a reporting job opened, she called Flynn in Brockton.

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"I couldn't think of anyone who was better at reporting on city affairs," she said. "And I was so grateful for his expertise and ultimate professionalism."

In time, he found a happy home life as well as a newspaper career. In Fall River, he met reporter Marcia Pobzeznik, who started a week after he did. Pobzeznik eventually worked several years at The Newport Daily News on the Tiverton beat.

They married in 1991 and are the parents of Sophie, 29, and Matt, 26. Sophie graduated from Brown University, worked for a public health consultant and is exploring law school options.

Matt earned an art history degree from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands after a stint at the Rhode Island School of Design. He is now home, taking graduate courses, working in a supermarket and plotting his future moves.

What's next for Flynn after a long career?

Reflecting on his Newport reporting career, Flynn enjoyed the wide range of available topics to cover beyond City Hall. He taught himself about sailing when it came time to cover the America's Cup World Series and the Volvo Ocean Races.

Flynn embedded himself with crew members. "At one point he strapped on a helmet and went out sailing with them," digital editor Barrett said. "I don't think there's any topic that Sean couldn't learn ... and quickly."

For Flynn, writing about competitive sailing provided a lens into an unfamiliar world.

"I really enjoyed talking to the captains and the crew," he said. "It's a different world, a different lifestyle. I don't usually like writing first person stories, but I did after I went out on the water. It was a fun experience."

On the flip side, there's the package of stories he wrote on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable neurological disorder commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

"It's such a terrible disease," Flynn said. "I talked to this man in Portsmouth, his wife used a crane to lift him out of bed. Those stories stay with you. (The late) David Leys was another person I wrote about. I think he was in a wheelchair by then, just awful to see."

From here, Flynn will take on household projects. He plans on a trip to Germany to visit Dennis and his family, which includes Flynn's two grandsons. "I'll keep busy, that's for sure."

Flynn made a positive impression on others in the newsroom, perhaps without realizing it.

Laura Damon joined The Daily News newsroom nearly five years ago. Early on, she watched Flynn in action. She admired the detail in his stories and his doggedness. Flynn worked the phones (usually bypassing email) to get answers, she said. And if that failed, he showed up at people's offices and homes.

Damon said she has a naturally strong work ethic, but Flynn inspired her to push harder. He never pontificated much about journalism — he was more show than tell. Damon paid attention and tried to mirror the drive and tenacity she saw in Flynn.

"I'm a better reporter because of Sean," she said.

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport Daily News' Sean Flynn heads into retirement after 37 years