14 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • NOVEMBER 2021
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
A PRESS VETERAN’S RETROSPECTIVE
BY TIMOTHY BOLGER
It barely took five minutes on the streets of
a well-to-do Long Island downtown to find
what I was looking for: a group of high school
students willing to share what turned out to
be the region’s dirty little secret.
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“Heroin’s a good drug,” one told me.
Then I went on to fi nd more who concurred
in nearby derelict woodlands.
I was on assignment for the Long Island
Press a decade ago, and that exchange
was the fi rst of many in our investigation
of the drug epidemic. In another
interview, a Massapequa High School
publicist told me their attorney would
have to confi rm the validity of police
allegations that a student was dealing
heroin on campus before school offi cials
would comment—the most aggressive
denial I’ve heard to date.
We went on to expose the school for the
cover-up in the course of the series that
followed. Together, those two moments
reporting that story helped crystalize
why I do what I do. The biggest
stories are oft en in plain sight —
and the more bureaucrats fi ght the
release of information, the clearer
it is that the story behind that fi ght
must be told.
At the time, not only did school
offi cials do their best to kill the story,
Suff olk County police did the
same while they were under the
thumb of a county executive who
sought to suppress crime news.
The schools have since amplifi ed
antidrug eff orts and the police
have become leaders in the fi ght
to raise awareness. Nowadays,
the crisis and its related prescription
drug abuse epidemic
are impossible to ignore.
Every local news outlet has since run
a series on the issue. And that’s great,
because our only goal, truly, has been
to continue raising awareness, since
sunshine is the best disinfectant in
scourges and scandals alike.
After our initial series, local
politicians passed laws in Nassau
and Suffolk counties to map online
for all to see where serious drug arrests
are occurring. The only result
of our coverage that proved more
rewarding was hearing from
substance-abuse treatment
advocates who gained funding
and were able to, in turn, help
more folks as a result of the
exposure.
When factoring in the relatively
anti-competitive mediascape
in the region, there is no shortage
of other stories to expose.
Brazen alleged corruption that
goes unreported is proof that
local leaders feel they can practically
get away with murder
since they think no one is paying
attention.
All the more reason for those of
us who know how to land such
stories to stick with it. Although
sometimes it comes as easily as
fi nding those heroin addicts on
the street corner, it’s not all about the
thrill of the hunt. It is the public’s right
to know.
But it helps to have good aim.
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