Bart Jones

They say newspaper journalism is dying. But I still believe it is one of the best jobs on the planet and is vital to keeping our democracy alive.

I got into journalism in an unusual way. When I was growing up, my dad was a Republican politician on Long Island. He was involved with issues such as the Shoreham nuclear power plant and the infamous Islip Town garbage barge. The vessel became a national spectacle as it traveled 6,000 miles and remained at sea for five months because no one wanted it. I used to hear my dad on the phone with Newsday reporters all the time. Some even visited our home. I was fascinated.

By keeping Long Islanders informed, we have a direct impact on people’s lives.

My first job in the business came during a college summer break at The Suffolk County News, a weekly in my hometown of Sayville. Since then, I’ve had the ride of a lifetime. With Newsday, I flew with Pope Francis on his plane as part of the Vatican Press Corps during his trip to Cuba and the United States in 2015. Before that, I worked as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press in Venezuela, charting the rise of Hugo Chavez to power. I rode on his plane, too, interviewing him for a biography I wrote.

One time in Venezuela, I was on a small airplane headed deep into the Amazon jungle for a story on the Yanomami – the “last Stone Age tribe in the Western Hemisphere.” We splashed down onto a muddy “runway” in a tiny opening in the jungle. The takeoff was even worse – I thought we were going to die. Luckily, we cleared the trees – barely - as we took off.

It turned out the Yanomami weren’t so isolated after all: American missionaries had supplied them with Mets caps, Off mosquito spray and New England-style white picket fences.

On Long Island, I’ve covered religion, immigration and myriad other topics. Just a few weeks after my arrival at Newsday in 2000 after eight years in Venezuela, I was thrust into the conflict over day laborers in Farmingville. Two young self-avowed white supremacists had tried to kill two Mexican immigrants. Shortly after the attack, I was in their house, interviewing them as they digested the shock of the assault.

Eight years later, Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero was killed by a gang of youths in Patchogue who said their pastime was attacking Latino immigrants. Newsday sent me to Ecuador to cover Lucero’s funeral. I’ll never forget the hundreds of people lining the streets of his hometown of Gualaceo as Lucero’s body arrived at the city’s entrance. His death had become an international incident.

These days, I’ve been covering many of the mass deportation campaign and ICE stories on Long Island, including the Suffolk County Community College honors student who was deported to Colombia. As a colleague recently commented to me, if Newsday was not telling many of these stories, no one would know.