What About Community Involvement?

From day one the foundation and whole mission of WLNG's success, has been to intertwine with our community.

For charities, we raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not long ago, more than that for a single beautiful little girl dying of leukemia.

For businesses out here, we do hundreds of remotes per year - sometimes two or three in a single day.

For big local news stories, like Long Island's Pine Barrens fires, our radio electronic news gathering (RENG) vehicles go out just like the fire trucks. For those particular fires, we stayed on station for 5 days straight,not just reporting the whereabouts of the fires, but coordinating all sorts of needs for the firemen. By our relaying those needs on the air, hundreds of local merchants rallied and brought forth every single thing that they needed and it wasn't just coffee and donuts.

One of our mobile units, on duty when TWA's Flight 800 went down, became the first in the country to break the news of that tragedy, and within actual moments of the crash. At the time our crew on WLNG's Mobile Unit 2 happened to be doing a remote at the Jamesport Fire Department Carnival in Jamesport, NY. Unlike any other East End radio station, having a number of RENG mobile units out and about really gives our news department an edge.

Included, only on WLNG, were several spellbinding interviews with an old friend of the stations, Major Frederic Meyer. He was the National Guard helicopter pilot, who with his 4-man crew was first to hover over the burning waters after actually eye witnessing the disintegration of the 747.

Meyer and his crew thought they saw missiles. Even though he was soon hushed up, WLNG had him on the air before the hush, live the very next day. Although missiles are not now the consensus, Major Meyer is again speaking out, holding strongly to what he and his crew thought they saw.  Although the whole country never got to hear him like back then on WLNG, Eastern Long Island certainly did.

"For Excellence in Community Service, WLNG has become an "NAB Crystal Station." Although some of us here would prefer not to toot our own horn, we have now been nominated for a "Crystal" three times as well as for a Marconi... "Station of the Year... Small Markets." Of America's 12,000 stations, only a few have been so repeatedly honored.

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