Meeting/Event Information

On Thursday, March 5, join the Press Club of Long Island *IN PERSON* at the Harborfields Public Library to meet and hear from members of the Long Island Journalism Hall of Fame. The discussion will be moderated by Cecilia Dowd, PCLI president and veteran News 12 reporter, with panelists Irene Virag and Greg Cergol. Register at harborfieldslibrary.org.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS:

GREG CERGOL is NBC 4 New York’s Long Island reporter, based at the station’s Long Island news bureau in Melville. Cergol is an eight-time Emmy® Award winner for journalistic excellence and has also been recognized with four Edward R. Murrow Awards, including a national award earned for NBC 4 New York’s 2012 coverage of Superstorm Sandy. 

Well-respected for asking the questions that viewers want answered, Cergol has covered Long Island’s most high-profile and headline-making stories for NBC 4 New York since April 1999. In addition to Sandy, these include two presidential debates, the opioid epidemic, political and governmental corruption and the future of Long Island’s economy. Cergol has been focusing on the biggest court cases that have impacted our community such as deaths of Boy Scout Andrew McMorris and young Thomas Valva.

Cergol’s reporting was a key component of NBC 4 New York’s award-winning COVID-19 coverage, honored in January, 2021 with the prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for “creat(ing) a 360 view in real time of the coronavirus pandemic, with courageous and thorough reporting on the virus’s explosion in New York City.” The duPont has long been recognized as the broadcast, documentary and on-line equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, also awarded by Columbia University.

Cergol joined NBC 4 New York from News 12 Long Island, where he served as reporter and anchor for nine years. A native of Queens, Cergol’s early career was spent in radio, at stations on Long Island, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Omaha, Nebraska and the NBC Radio Network.

A member of the Long Island Press Club Hall of Fame, Cergol has also been named “Journalist of the Year” by the Press Club in honor of his accomplishments and service. He has received the “General’s Award” from the US Army Reserves, and has been honored by the NYS Broadcaster’s Association, the Associated Press, Long Island Fair Media Council and others.

Cergol is also an active volunteer who gives his time to support Long Island’s non-profit community. Cergol is a graduate of Marquette University in Milwaukee and resides in Suffolk County with his family.

IRENE VIRAG is the associate dean and undergraduate program director of Stony Brook University’s School of Communication and Jou

rnalism, where she teaches narrative and magazine writing.

Virag won a Pulitzer Prize as a member of the Newsday team that chronicled the story of Baby Jane Doe, an infant with spina bifida, and the political struggle over her treatment. She was also a Pulitzer finalist for feature writing and explanatory journalism. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and a 10-time winner of the New York Newswoman's Club Front Page Award. During her 25-year Newsday career, Virag wrote a garden column, a nature column, a home column and the "Long Island Diary," as well as numerous award-winning narrative stories and series, including a year-long series about women fighting breast cancer. When she was diagnosed just months later, she wrote about her own breast cancer.

She was inducted into the Long Island Journalism Hall of Fame in 2023. She is in the Garden Writers Hall of Fame and was named a "Great American Gardener" by the American Horticultural Society. She is the author of two books, "We're All in This Together — Families Facing Breast Cancer" and "Gardening on Long Island with Irene Virag." She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University and a master’s from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

JOYE BROWN is an associate editor at Newsday. She joined the Newsday Media Group in 1983, going on, over the years, to work as an assigning editor, newsroom manager of editorial staff development, editorial writer and columnist and most recently as a NewsdayTV producer and reporter.

She has won several awards, including a 1984 Pulitzer Prize as part of a Newsday local reporting team; as a Pulitzer finalist in another Newsday team effort.

Before joining Newsday, Brown worked as an editor for the Mutual Broadcasting Company/ Mutual Black Network in Washington, D.C. and as a reporter for the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. and The Chicago Tribune.

She is a native of Washington D.C. and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The George Washington University.