Editorial | East End Beacon

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Editorial: Happy September.

September 1, 2026September 8, 2026 Beth Young

As the madness of late summer drew to a close and we were putting our September issue to bed, we were combing through photos for images of events from other Septembers when we were overcome with emotion at the sight of an idyllic personal photo from 2023. In it, we’re holding our granddaughter’s hands as we walked away from the camera, down a dirt road just a block from our

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Editorial: We Need to Adapt

August 3, 2026August 14, 2026 East End Beacon

Back when we were starting our careers in journalism around the turn of the millennium, the term climate change was just being adopted by scientists, who realized that the concept of “global warming” will not accurately reflect the changes in our atmosphere that we are now seeing every day. This summer on the East End has been marked by many climatological events, despite the fact that we’ve not, to date,

Editorial Housing Opinion Recent

Editorial: Think Big On Community Housing

June 25, 2026June 30, 2026 Beth Young

It’s become abundantly clear that a lack of housing for people who work on the East End is a true, community-threatening crisis, and we’re heartened to see that the public at large recognizes the urgency of the situation. At a recent public discussion on Southold Town’s zoning update priorities, speaker after speaker echoed support for community housing, the town’s top priority. Business owners, longtime housing advocates and environmentalists alike all

Editorial Opinion Recent

Editorial: The Endless Scroll and the Bottom Line

May 28, 2026June 3, 2026 East End Beacon

Any of us who’ve gone out into the work force or started a business have heard the tired aphorisms about the importance of projecting an image of success. After all, when you’re faking it ‘till you make it, you’re supposedly on a voyage somewhere much better. These messages make it easier to put on a suit of armor and go out to face your career. But projecting an image of

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Editorial: A Viral Media Problem

April 27, 2026May 5, 2026 East End Beacon

It’s been a long time since we were this embarrassed to be part of the Long Island press corps. In case you haven’t heard, the local media landscape was blanketed last week with dire warnings about “flesh eating bacteria” making its way into our waters. These warnings came from the mouth of one of the most respected marine ecologists working here, Stony Brook’s Dr. Christopher Gobler, who mentioned flesh eating

Editorial Opinion Recent

Editorial: We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For

March 30, 2026April 6, 2026 East End Beacon

We’re not glum these days, which may seem daft given the state of the world. Everywhere we turn, people are leaning on one another, sharing their knowledge and building deep networks of care and love for the people around them. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman picked up on this phenomenon when recently visiting his childhood stomping grounds in Minneapolis, where he noted that Minneapolitians had recently turned the

A rendering of the Tesla Megapack. |. Tesla photo

Editorial Opinion Recent Southold Southold Comp Plan & Zoning

Editorial: Take the Incremental Path

March 3, 2026April 21, 2026 East End Beacon

It’s been nearly a year since Southold Town first unveiled its proposed Zoning Update, which has been in the works now for the better half of a decade after the 2020 adoption of the town’s Comprehensive Plan. When the first draft of the massive overhaul was unveiled to the public last year, reactions were all over the map. It was a lot to digest, and despite the town Planning Department’s

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Editorial: Don’t Quit on Greenport

February 10, 2026February 12, 2026 East End Beacon

Greenport is often called the heart of the North Fork. This tiny village is a rough-and-tumble place that, like seaports through the ages, has welcomed newcomers to its docks and stores and homes. Through boom and bust cycles driven by macro and micro-economic forces, the heartbeat of this village has always been the tough but compassionate people who call this place home — whether they were born here or not. As

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Editorial: Bending Toward Resilience

December 30, 2025January 5, 2026 East End Beacon

Let’s hope, for just a few minutes, because it is a hopeful time of year. We talk a lot here about resilience, about the ability to grow through the experience of turbulent times — it’s been a theme running through our coverage for more than a decade now. What that means, in practice, is constantly evolving, because the things that stress our communities are always changing. And there are real,

A dead horseshoe crab on the Long Island Sound

Editorial Opinion Recent

Editorial: Horseshoe Crabs & the ESA…. What New York Saves Will Say A Lot

December 15, 2025December 19, 2025 East End Beacon

“What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.” — Molly Beattie, former director, US Fish & Wildlife Service, defender of the Endangered Species Act Back when former President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, there was reason to believe this country's conscience was coalescing behind support of the natural world. But of course, we now live in different times. In

Editorial Immigration Opinion

Editorial: Yes, This Is About Public Safety

December 5, 2025December 14, 2025 East End Beacon

Everything has changed, for all of us, in the past month on the East End. If you don’t interact that often with people who weren’t born on U.S. soil, you’d be forgiven for not seeing the subtle signs that things are askew. But if you witnessed what happened in Hampton Bays and Westhampton Beach the day after U.S. citizens participated in a free and fair election this November, you would