The journalism industry isn’t the easiest field to break into; it takes long hours, lots of detail-heavy work and little compensation. Even then, there’s no guarantee of employment. But for 25 years, The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) has been churning out high-profile television reporters, with stints on ESPN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel and others. The alumni of the nightly TV show LI News Tonight hold it in the highest regard.

“There is no program like it,” says Fox News anchor Patti Ann Browne, who worked at the Old Westbury-based program 20 years ago. “It gave me the bug.” The forcredit program is open to undergraduate and graduate students majoring in any subject.

LI News Tonight, broadcasting to Nassau and Suffolk on Cablevision’s Telecare Channel 29, was started in 1983 by NYIT Professor Efim Brook, and Adrienne O’Brien, Ph.D., then head of the communications department. Browne remembers the students going out in the field every day, side by side with reporters they saw on TV, then rushing back to the studio to put together a show. Brook and O’Brien tried to push the concept of their mantra: “learning by doing.”

“It was a great training camp; it’s like boot camp for TV students,” recalls Trish Bergen, who spent three years at the program before going on to other networks.

In addition to having alumni succeed locally, the program has sent journalists overseas to Russia, Greece and Israel, and won an Emmy in April 2002 for student Monique Brook’s coverage of Bellport’s Gateway Playhouse. Brook, News Director Ken Eckhardt and Program Director Gary Licker beat out PBS/WLIW and the Metro Channel for the award. Emmy gold has also come to some of the graduates.

“It was a great learning experience,” says Dave Garden, who did photography and editing for the show between 1994 and 1996 and later won eight Emmy Awards. “[It taught me] the basics of photography, how to visually tell a news story and get it on the air that night.”

Carol Pack, now the program’s assignment manager, became involved as an NYIT undergraduate two years after the show began, then rose up the ranks from equipment manager to assignment editor to her current position.

Pack has seen a lot of positive technology changes. The show originally used typewriters to produce five copies of text, so any mistakes would appear on every copy. Now, with computers, students can write and edit scripts quickly and e-mail them to producers. And today’s shows have a place marker in cyberspace: LINewsTonight.com, the show’s website.

But the innovation that’s had the biggest effect? YouTube—often the bane of many a newscaster (notably Bill O’Reilly and Sue Simmons)—allows interns to show work to friends and gives local organizations ready access to segments featuring them.

“The change in technology over the past 10 to 15 years has helped us do our job better and reach more people,” Pack says.

But not everything changes with time. As Pack points out, unlike a newsroom with seasoned veterans, LI News Tonight is comprised of students. Once they get a firm grip on everything, they’re out the door, replaced by a fresh batch of unseasoned kids.

After celebrating its October anniversary, how does the program’s future look? Pack admits candidly that she’s not sure. With newspapers downsizing and instituting cost-cutting measures left and right, future journalists will likely do more than report.

“I was at a meeting last night as a moderator; it was titled, ‘Video for Dummies,’” she says. “A lot of reporters were there; they are print people who need to know how to shoot video. All of a sudden they have to get sound bites and know what microphones to use. I don’t think it’s changing [just] for people in print—I think it’s changing for everyone.”