SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Frazier Dougherty's Memorial "A Celebration Of A Bold Life"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“A Celebration of a Bold Life” was the title of a memorial for an extraordinary person, a pioneer of public access television in Suffolk County — indeed, the lead creator of a model for public access TV in the nation. Frazer Dougherty died last September at 101.

The memorial at the studios of LTV in Wainscott (LTV for “local television”) on January 14 included a video and photos of Frazer’s remarkable life and testimonials from relatives and folks he worked with at LTV.

It began with daughter Ariel Dougherty telling the 150 people assembled: “Frazer’s death is not only a loss for his family and friends but also for the many, many people he encountered throughout his numerous adventures.”

He was born in Pennsylvania, and the family later moved to Virginia. The video related how, with war breaking out in Europe, Frazer considered enlisting in the Canadian Armed Forces. But he had met the woman who would be his first wife, Page Caroline Huidekoper.

So, in 1940, he joined the National Guard. With the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entering what would be World War II, he transferred to the Army Air Corps and was a B-25 bomber pilot, flying 63 missions in New Guinea. A photo displayed his plane pierced with bullet holes.

The war won, back home he became an industrial designer and test pilot of the Airphibian, a flying car. The video showed Frazer flying and driving it. The Airphibian is on exhibit at the Smithsonian, and there were photos of Frazer sitting proudly in it at the museum.

He was very much involved in the civil rights struggle and supporting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was at the March on Washington and the marches from Selma to Montgomery.

He married Frances Ann Cannon Hersey in 1963. (She had been the girlfriend of a young John F. Kennedy and then wife of writer John Hersey before marrying Frazer.)

Frances Ann and Frazer spent most of the 1970s sailing around Greece and its islands, and then moved to East Hampton.

Frazer was fascinated by TV and its potential for community use. East Hampton was being targeted for large-scale development in the early 1980s. Developers were pushing the Town Board to abolish the town’s Planning Department to prevent it and its director, Tom Thorsen, from doing what the developers wanted. The board’s GOP majority complied.

However, then-East Hampton Town Supervisor Mary Fallon, at a public hearing, faced hundreds of East Hampton residents outraged by the department’s elimination. As they blasted it, she broke down. Frazer, with a video camera, recorded the scene. He took the tape to Sammons Communications, which had the town’s cable TV contract, and it was aired.

TV foremost conveys feelings and emotion; thus, showing the episode on TV had a great effect, significantly expanding opposition to what was happening. Fallon would resign as supervisor. There would be other government changes. The Planning Department would be reinstated. And Frazer would tell me later how it demonstrated the effectiveness of local TV.

Meanwhile, led by Frazer, working with Jill Keefe, Marty Katz and Bill King, LTV was being established. Frazer asked me to be on its board, and, impressed by the communication abilities of local TV and how LTV could be a national model, I joined it.

“Frazer was LTV’s champion,” Genie Henderson, an LTV producer, board member, its longtime archivist and former executive director, said at the memorial. Frazer was LTV’s “nonstop promoter to anyone who would listen,” she said. “Who can forget the man who was everywhere with a camera — parades, fairs, benefits, lectures, nature walks, heated debates …”

And “thanks to his perseverance, here we are,” she continued. “For me and for I know dozens if not hundreds of others who got involved with this ‘we the people’ notion, it was about the community … LTV virtually opened up the community.”

“Originally inspired by Frazer’s mantra — ‘Never throw anything away’ — we didn’t,” said Genie. And the LTV archive is now “30,000 shows strong,” which, “thanks to a partnership with the East Hampton Library, are now being digitized and made available for viewing online. It’s an exceptional, eclectic and highly unique collection — and all thanks to one man who had the will and the vision to create a platform for the people and by the people.”

Frazer hosted a daily two-hour morning show on LTV, “Hello Hello,” making 1,400 programs.

LTV is funded with cable TV franchise fees through East Hampton town and village and contributions from individuals, underwriters, grants and studio rentals. It is under the steady hand now of Michael Clark as executive director.

When cable TV was starting, the Federal Communications Commission in 1969 adopted a requirement that cable TV systems with 3,500 or more subscribers operate an “outlet” for “origination cablecasting” for “local production and presentation.” That requirement, unfortunately, no longer exists.

In addition to writing, I’ve long done television, too. For 33 years, I’ve hosted a TV program, “Enviro Close-Up,” broadcast nationally by Free Speech TV.

But TV should also be local. (I host, without any compensation, a local program on LTV, “Environment Long Island.”) LTV and Frazer Dougherty have pioneered a model for local TV.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Journalism And Transparency In Government

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“I love the Press Club of Long Island,” said Brian Stelter. “I love journalism organizations. We need more of them. We need them to be healthy and vibrant.”

He was speaking at the start of “A Chat with Brian Stelter” aired recently online—and open to the public—by the Press Club of Long Island. (It can be viewed by going to the club’s website https://pcli.org and clicking on the NEWS button.) Stelter is former anchor of “Reliable Sources” on CNN and author of the books “Top of the Morning,” “Hoax,” and, last year, “Network of Lies.”

This has been a challenging time for media—under fire by those who would disinform and are frustrated by tough reporting like Stelter did on CNN and in his books.

The Press Club of Long Island, which is having its 50^th, its golden anniversary this year, is dedicated to the free and accurate flow of information. Democracy is dependent on an informed citizenry. And historically and now there have been obstacles.

Consider the club’s extensive investigation on how New York State’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) is implemented—or isn’t—by governments on Long Island. The 16-month project was conducted by Tim Bolger as chair of the club’s Freedom of Information Committee. The cumulative grade Long Island localities received was a C. 

Bolger is editor in chief of the Long Island Press and also Dan’s Papers.

As Chris Vaccaro, then president of the Press Club of Long Island, said: “Freedom of information laws exist for a reason, and the results of the audit are pretty eye-opening. It’s our hope that the audit will eventually help improve transparency by local governments and agencies that received low grades. We also commend the governments and agencies that scored high marks.”

As Bolger noted: “In our report card, agencies were graded on whether they responded to records requests within legal deadlines, if they provided documents that FOIL requires them to maintain, if they denied requests in writing, if they identified their FOIL denial appeals officer, if we had to appeal an improper denial and if they emailed the documents when requested, all of which is required by law.”

Scoring A-plus included the clerk of the Suffolk County Legislature, the Suffolk County clerk and the town governments of Riverhead, Southold, Southampton and Huntington. Smithtown received a B. 

But others were dismal or middling in their FOIL compliance. 

As Bolger reported, some 64% “failed to respond to our requests by the legally required deadlines,” 46% “failed to provide a list of documents they’re required to maintain” and 17% “scored failing grades.” 

The results of the investigation in 2016 and 2017 were widely reported.

Or consider the swift and strong action of the Press Club of Long Island when Pat Biancaniello, editor of Smithtown Matters, and David Ambro, managing editor of the Smithtown News, were kicked out of a rally for then U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin featuring an extreme conservative speaker, Sebastian Gorka. This happened although they were invited by the Zeldin campaign organization to attend, 

“The press serves an important role to keep Americans informed of facts that allow us to inform our own independent judgement on matters before our community, nation and world,” declared the Press Club of Long Island. 

There was an apology from Zeldin who was not at the rally. 

There’s much to be done in a never-ending free press struggle—on Long Island, in the United States and world. Ever since Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press nearly 600 years ago, there have been many in power threatened by people being able to communicate freely, and they have worked hard to prevent that.

What caused me in 1974 to organize what became the Press Club of Long Island and become its first president was reading about a reporter being jailed for not revealing the identity of a source. In the ensuing years—which included action by journalism organizations—nearly all states have enacted “shield” laws to protect journalists from having to divulge sources. But the laws vary significantly.

And there was this headline in The Washington Post last month: “A CBS reporter refusing to reveal her sources could be held in contempt.” The investigative journalist is Catherine Herridge and her stories involved her looking into a questionable U.S. government probe of a scientist.

There’s no federal “shield” law. 

And, meanwhile, there are no legal restrictions preventing the U.S. government from obtaining a reporter’s records from phone companies and email providers in order to identify sources. Bipartisan legislation has been introduced in Congress—the Protect Reporters from Exploitive State Spying Act—the PRESS Act—to stop this. The bill passed the House of Representatives unanimously but there’s been no Senate vote. 

 Says the bill’s Republican sponsor in the House, Kevin Kiley of California: “As acknowledged by America’s founders, the freedom of the press to report on and disseminate information is critical to our republic.” Its Democratic House sponsor, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, says: “Our Constitution provides that no law shall abridge the freedom of the press and inspires us to protect journalists against government overreach and abuse.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: 50 Years Of Focus On Freedom Of The Press

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

Karl Grossman

It was 50 years ago and I was at my desk at the Suffolk County office of the daily Long Island Press in Smithtown reading an article about a reporter being jailed for not divulging the identity of a source. Sources, especially in investigative reporting, are invaluable, golden.

I was talking about it with the Suffolk editor of The Press, Tom Condon, who was at the desk across from mine, and saying to Tom how important it could be if we had a press club on Long Island to fight for our colleagues in this sort of situation, indeed doing our part in fighting for press freedom.

On Long Island, I was thinking, were hundreds of journalists devoted to the profession of journalism. As we were talking, Dave Woods, then the head of university relations at Stony Brook University, happened to call the office.

I got on the telephone and asked Dave whether I could utilize Stony Brook’s press list to send out an invitation to Long Island journalists to an initial meeting about forming a press club. The meeting was held at the Three Village Inn in Stony Brook. More than 50 journalists were there. And I was elected president.

I worked subsequently at writing a constitution for the press club. I sent letters to press clubs around the U.S. requesting copies of their constitutions and I formulated a constitution based on these.

We elected additional officers including Maurice Swift, a Newsday editor, who became vice president, and board members from each area of media: print, TV, radio, but not Internet yet as it was 1974.

I have been thrilled as the Press Club of Long Island has grown. It has expanded to become a chapter, in fact one of the largest chapters, of the Society of Professional Journalists, the biggest press organization in the United States.

In these 50 years the club has kept a key focus on freedom of the press—especially important in recent years amid attacks on media, the totally false charge that the press is the “enemy of the people” when, in fact, the opposite is true.

A tidbit: originally my idea was to name the club the Long Island Press Club. This would be consistent with the names of many press clubs: the New York Press Club, Los Angeles Press Club and Cleveland Press Club, the original name of the club in Cleveland where I had been inspired to go into journalism by a college internship in 1960 at the Cleveland Press. But at the time the two major daily newspapers here, competing intensely, were Newsday and the Long Island Press and there was concern among some Newsday folks about this name considering I was with the Long Island Press. There might be the appearance, it was felt, that this would somehow be a Long Island Press undertaking. So I quickly suggested Press Club of Long Island instead. And that’s how the club got its name.

The president now of the Press Club of Long Island is Brendan J. O’Reilly, deputy managing editor at the Express News Group which publishes The Southampton Press, The East Hampton Press, The Sag Harbor Express and the website 27East.

Says O’Reilly: “Half a century later, the Press Club of Long Island and similar journalism-advocacy organizations are as relevant as ever. Often for political purposes, Long Island journalists are not only unfairly maligned but also harassed and threatened. Still, they continue to stand up for truth and transparency. PCLI remains strong in its commitment to defending press access and freedom.”

Relates O’Reilly: “We bring journalists together for the annual PCLI Media Awards, sponsor the Long Island Journalism Hall of Fame, host educational events and conversations on journalism matters for journalists and the public at large, provide speakers for classrooms and conferences, and award thousands of dollars in college scholarships annually for the next generation of journalists. PCLI has a dedicated board of volunteers who lend their time and their journalism experience to make all this happen.”

Long Island has a strong journalistic history.

In 2015 the Press Club created a Historical Studies Committee to conduct research and place historic markers at various important sites of journalism on Long Island. The following year, the first markers were set up which included one in Sag Harbor that declares: “DAVID FRONTHINGHAM—PUBLISHER OF LONG ISLAND’S FIRST NEWSPAPER, FROTHINGHAM’S LONG ISLAND HERALD, 1791-1798, LIVED AND PRINTED AT THIS SITE.” And the club erected a sign in Huntington to commemorate where Walt Whitman founded The Long Islander newspaper in 1838. The Long Islander continues being published. Whitman was more than one of America’s greatest American poets; he was also a great Long Island journalist. There have been more signs placed since. 

More about the activities of the Press Club of Long Island in this space next week. 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

Suffolk Closeup: Ed Romaine Is Sworn In As Suffolk County's 9th County Executive

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

If only Washington would be this way.

Ed Romaine is sworn in as Suffolk County’s 9th County ExecutiveThe inauguration last week of Ed Romaine as the ninth county executive of Suffolk County was a celebration of non-partisanship in government. 

And it was a big salute to Romaine.

“He never let partisanship get in his way,” declared U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, in a presentation effusively praising Republican Romaine.

There were loads of Republican public officials, leaders and just plain GOP rank-and-filers among the hundreds of people packed into the auditorium at the Eastport South Manor Junior-Senior High School on January 1. This included the two members of the U.S. House of Representatives who represent Suffolk, Nick LaLota and Andrew Garbarino, and many state, county and town Republican officials including District Attorney Ray Tierney, and, of course, Suffolk Republican Chairman Jesse Garcia. Romaine is the first Republican Suffolk County executive in two decades.

But there were also plenty of Democrats. Those in attendance besides Schumer included New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, Suffolk Democratic Chairman and Babylon Town Supervisor Rich Schaffer, Suffolk County Legislators Steve Englebright and Ann Welker, Suffolk Sheriff Errol Toulon, and the new Southampton town supervisor, Maria Moore.

Suffolk County Conservative Party Chairman Mike Torres was there, too.

I’ve covered Suffolk County executives since 1962 and regularly wrote about the first person to hold that office, H. Lee Dennison, a Democrat who crusaded for governmental reform, and then his successor, John V. N. Klein, a Republican who championed environmental initiatives including the first-of-its-kind Suffolk County Farmland Preservation Program and was a leader in challenging oil-drilling off Suffolk’s coast.

Senator Chuck Schumer Republican Dan Panico, who now follows Romaine as Brookhaven Town supervisor, said in his presentation at the inauguration: “Ed will be one of the best county executives this county has ever seen.” 

I agree with Panico having covered Romaine since 1985 after he left being a history teacher at Hauppauge High School and began putting into practice the ideals about which he taught. I’ve regularly written about his leading in numerous environmental and good-government initiatives as a long-time member of the Suffolk Legislature, innovations as county clerk, and as supervisor of Brookhaven, Suffolk’s largest town in size and population. Through many decades, he’s among the finest officials in Suffolk I have known. 

Panico spoke of Romaine’s “impeccable character” and his having “dedicated his life to make the lives of people better.”

That view was mirrored in the remarks of Schumer. “It’s a great day for Suffolk,” said Schumer. “You are getting a great representative for your county executive.”

Romaine, said Schumer, “will always put community first.”

“Suffolk County is a bastion of the middle class,” said Schumer, who hails from Brooklyn. He spoke of Suffolk being composed of “people who don’t ask for much, who just want a decent life for them and maybe have a better life for their kids….Ed understands that instinctively.”

Schumer listed many accomplishments of Romaine in government. Among these, he noted, was a pioneering federal law they worked on together “to regulate helicopter traffic” triggered by the “racket” of helicopters delivering visitors from the city to the Hamptons.

The inauguration began with Paige Patterson of Port Jefferson Station singing the opening lines of the tune “Feeling Good”—“It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day….And I’m feeling good.” The master of ceremonies, former State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, a Republican, opened with: “This is a good day.”

Romaine began his “Inaugural Address” with: “It is a new day in Suffolk County.”

“I have a long list of to-do’s,” he said. 

“This administration will be rooted in the values and traditions of hard work, personal initiative and accountability, so we can build a future that is safe and more affordable, and provides hope and opportunity to our citizens,” he continued. He outlined many of the areas he will focus upon including creation of affordable housing so people “can live here,” the environment, fighting crime, solid waste, and the highway system. He singled out the ordeal of driving “on Sunrise Highway and County Road 39 in Southampton clogged by “the ‘trade parade.’” 

The county “legislature and county executive must work together,” he said. The legislature’s presiding officer, Kevin McCaffrey, a Republican, had a front-row seat. And he said he wants “to work with our [town] supervisors.” 

“I want to start the work of building a better Suffolk County,” said Romaine.

The Rev. Patrick Riegger of St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Center Moriches—where Romaine and his wife Diane reside—gave the opening invocation. The priest spoke of building a “society founded on the principles of truth, peace and love.”  The closing benediction was offered by Rabbi Aaron Benson of the North Shore Jewish Center in Port Jefferson Station who said “today is a day of new beginnings” and of “hope and promise.” 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: The Year 2023

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The year 2023 had a stormy ending in Suffolk County, a year of great storminess in which general violence in the world—war—colored life here and widely.

An “extreme weather event”—as they have begun to be called—happened in December in the form of a winter storm that behaved more like a hurricane. 

Brookhaven Town officials reported that Fire Island lost double the amount of sand in the storm then it lost during the whole previous year. 

Newsday, which through the decades has championed trying to fortifying Fire Island beaches by dumping sand on them, felt compelled to publish an editorial headed “Hard questions on beach erosion.” What happened to Fire Island “has inflamed the long debate over who should pay—and how often—for renovations doomed to eventually wash away,” it declared.

 “Hard questions must be asked and answered,” it said. “Government policymakers have to look open-eyed at the huge costs of battling Mother Nature while trying to maintain our shorelines. Should taxpayers living miles from the waterfront be asked to repeatedly fund expensive projects that rehab beaches and, not incidentally, protect private homes? Should beachfront property owners be required to pay for their own protection or move away from endangered areas? Now is the time to finally recognize the changing reality for Long Island’s shoreline and begin adapting to it. The answers won’t be easy, but they will define our region for generations.”

The fierce winter storm also caused the beach in Montauk to be stripped of the sand used to cover 14,000 giant sandbags placed on its coast in a multi-million project to try to protect a line of mostly motels. The “geotextile” bags, now naked, are an ugly site. 

Wiser paths for highly vulnerable coastal stretches are public acquisition—as has been happening in low-lying sections of Mastic Beach in a partnership between The Nature Conservancy and Brookhaven Town—and restoring wetlands. They provide a natural buffer from storms. Most important, however, is dealing with the cause not just effect of “extreme weather events”—climate change.

And the UN’s 2023 annual conference on climate change was not a sterling event in that regard. It was held in the United Arab Emirates, among the world’s leading producers of fossil fuels—oil and gas—the prime cause of climate warming. The conference president, Sultan al Jaber, is chief executive officer of the government-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. He asserted that ending the use of fossil fuels would “take the world back into caves.” There were 2,500 fossil fuel lobbyists reported in attendance. The final report issued at the conference  weakly recommended “transitioning away from fossil fuels”—far short of a phaseout that environmentalists sought.

Still, as the Associated Press reported last week: “Led by new solar power, the world added renewable energy at breakneck speed in 2023, a trend that if amplified will help Earth turn away from fossil fuels and prevent severe warming and its effects. Clean energy is often now the least expensive, explaining some of the growth.”

Back in Suffolk, the election of 2023 resulted in the election of a new head of county government, Ed Romaine, the Brookhaven Town supervisor and previously a county legislator and county clerk. There was the quite the mess in 2023 in the administration of the term-limited incumbent county executive with the county government’s hit in a massive hacking attack. 

In the election, voters continued the Republican majority on the Suffolk Legislature. With Romaine, the first Republican to be elected county executive of Suffolk in 20 years, the GOP is is in control of both the legislative and executive branches of county government. 

Women made substantial gains in the election, quite a contrast to before 1973 when Judith Hope became the first woman elected a town supervisor in Suffolk winning the supervisor’s post in East Hampton. This year, women elected to town supervisor spots in Suffolk’s 10 towns were: in Southampton, Maria Moore; in East Hampton, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez; in Islip, Angie Carpenter; in Shelter Island, Republican Amber Brach-Williams. As to the Suffolk Legislature, six of its 18 members will be female.

The lack of affordable housing remained a burning issue in 2023.

A bright technological event here was local action on cellphone use in class by students. On Shelter Island, its Board of Education prohibited it following teacher Peter Miedema instituting a cellphone ban in his humanities classes the prior year. He observed: “You cannot learn at the same time you are looking at other information.” Joining Shelter Island in banning cellphone use by students in 2023 were the Sag Harbor and Brentwood school systems. 

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East affected life in Suffolk greatly in 2023. Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine and the attack by Hamas on Israel and the ensuing conflict dominated the news. Tie-ins here included the arrest in Montauk of a man who police said admitted to spray-painting swastikas on businesses he believed were owned by Jews. 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.