Brain Drain

Long Island is suffering from a brain drain, and I'm not talking about the thousands of young people 24-39 who are forced to leave each year because of the high cost of living here or that employers are concerned about the future of the Long Island economy without this vital pool of talent. I am talking about my brain when I read the news.

Maybe it is just me but I can't seem to get enough information in any one Long Island publication to satisfy my brain. Yes there is island-wide coverage provided by Newsday and News 12 but their news gathering is dominated by shallow sensationalist stories that do not adequately feed an inquiring mind. Maybe, I am asking too much. Maybe Long Islanders do not really require much depth in their news coverage and I am just barking up the wrong tree.

Maybe it is just a case of Long Island being so localized, so carved up into so many pieces; villages, towns, school districts, taxing districts and special districts that it is impossible to do a broad coverage of news. Don't get me wrong, each of these tiny pieces has its own local publications. Today I read the Long Island Business News, The Long Island Press, the Long Island Advance, The Smithtown News, The Long-Islander, The East Hampton Star and a host of other little dailies looking for information. Because of the sheer volume of teeny tiny weeklies, I have to limit myself to Suffolk county publications because I reside here. For those of us in Suffolk, Nassau county is a whole other planet. Enough said.

Maybe I am just complaining because of the sheer amount of publications I have to troll through just to get all the news and information that I crave. I wish there was an easier way.