When I was a junior in high school, I took an English essay final on a subject that escapes me to this day. But what I remember most was the look on my teacher’s face when I asked her for a second 10-page essay booklet because I wasn’t done writing yet.
“I still have more to say,” I told her.
Every day is a new adventure, one where I get to interview local heroes, unlikely scoundrels, and every-day Long Islanders who, like me, thankfully still have plenty to say.
I still do.
For more than 25 years, I’ve been a reporter for newspapers, investigative websites and magazines, both large and small, in New York, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
I’ve spent the past 12-plus years covering every subject imaginable for Newsday, from the failed efforts to build a new Nassau Coliseum to sex abuse scandals at one of the nation’s only federal service academies and the first to admit women.
I wake up every day to a new assignment, one that I cannot plan for. Whether a plane crashes on its way to MacArthur Airport, a police officer is injured in the line of duty or Long Island’s skies are suddenly shrouded in an eerie orange hue, I’m often the man tasked with digging out the details.
“Brodsky,” my editor will often instruct (my mother is the only one who still uses my first name), “run to the scene. Get the details. Find the documents. And pump out a first draft of the story before getting a second one ready for print.”
It’s still a rush, breaking news on deadline, scooping the competition and helping shape the public discourse.
And to do so in my hometown, where I’ve lived for 15 years and where my daughters, Shayna and Reese, go to school, and will hopefully raise their own family one day, never gets old.
Every day is a new adventure, one where I get to interview local heroes, unlikely scoundrels, and every-day Long Islanders who, like me, thankfully still have plenty to say.
