Barbara Hoctor Lynch, early host of NPR’s ‘All Things Considered,’ dies

Barbara Hoctor Lynch, a former broadcast journalist who hosted NPR’s All Things Considered in its early days, died earlier this month. She was 77.

Hoctor Lynch died after a struggle with cancer on Sept. 18 at a rehab facility in Somers, N.Y., where she spent her final days receiving care, her brother Chris Hoctor told NPR. She was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer this summer that had spread to her colon and liver.

Barbara Hoctor Lynch, right, is pictured cohosting All Things Considered with Noah Adams at a studio in a former NPR building in Washington, D.C., during the 1970s.

Art Silverman

“My family called her an eternal optimist,” he said. “Even as she was terminally ill, she would always try to care about others like me [and] call me on the phone in the hospital and say, ‘How are you, what are you doing today?’ “

Hoctor Lynch landed at NPR in the late 1970s, when she was hired to host the weekend broadcast of the network’s first news program, All Things Considered. In November 1979, she debuted the first top-of-the-day news show Morning Edition alongside co-host Bob Edwards. As host, Hoctor Lynch covered a wide range of current events, such as the Carter administration during the Iran hostage crisis and the 1980 presidential election.

NPR’s CEO John Lansing extended sympathies to Hoctor Lynch’s family in a statement on Friday.

“Hoctor and co-host Bob Edwards were at the forefront of the news program that would bring a new style of storytelling to the early-drive-time airwaves and grow to become the most listened-to news radio program in the country,” Lansing said.

In an era when few women held front-facing…