Funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn more at rwjbh.org.

From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Briana Vannozzi.

- Tonight, we are bringing you our final show here at NJ Spotlight News.

For the past 15 years, our team of journalists, producers, editors, and photographers have covered this state, telling the stories that have shaped New Jersey and the people who live here.

We've covered the administrations of three governors, the destruction and rebuilding after major storms, dozens of election nights, state of the state and budget addresses, the political debates, the rise and fall of some of New Jersey's most powerful politicians.

We've hosted community forums and told stories from Main Street about the people, families, and businesses that make this great state what it is.

And we faced our own changes, a global pandemic, a media landscape that continues to evolve at lightning speed.

Our mission though, always remained the same, to be a trusted, thorough source of information and to bring you the stories we believe you need to know, the ones that affect your lives.

So before we close our final chapter, we wanted to take a look back at that work, the people and the stories that have made this newsroom what it is, a love letter of sorts.

After 40 years, NJN, New Jersey Network, went off the air on June 30th, 2011.

We hope for the best with NJTV for the sake of New Jersey.

We do.

The next day, NJ Today, Summer Edition, launched.

Welcome to NJ Today, Summer Edition's first broadcast.

And there was no shortage of big stories.

We were there as Hurricanes Irene and Sandy battered New Jersey.

In the house it's four feet and more.

So it's bad.

Documenting the devastation and the long road to recovery.

Boardwalk rides now here in the sand being washed away by the tide.

And around me as you can see, nothing was spared by Sandy.

The kind of stories that seemed to define an era.

The state judge ruling that New Jersey officials must allow gay couples to marry.

How happy we'll be, how safe we will feel.

To a defiant Chris Christie after the Bridgegate scandal.

I worked the cones actually.

Our chief political correspondent, Michael Aaron, picks up the story.

With his credibility on the line, Governor Christie walked out to face the media and delivered a mea culpa.

And I come out here today to apologize to the people of New Jersey.

The show rebranded as NJTV News in 2014, and the newsroom continued to grow.

More reporters, more resources, a move to a new studio in Newark.

And from that new home, we took on some of the biggest Jersey stories there were to cover.

Today I am proud to announce my candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States of America.

You seem to be enjoying yourself regardless of how this ends.

I'm enjoying myself because I think I'm going to win.

His enthusiastic endorsement of former rival Donald Trump has led New Jersey newspapers to call for his resignation.

The federal corruption trial of U.S.

Senator Bob Menendez has ended in a mistrial.

We can tell you that at this hour, NJTV News is calling Phil Murphy as the projected winner for New Jersey's gubernatorial race.

What are the facts here?

There's evidence to suggest that the city's school administrators knew about elevated lead levels in the school water supplies as far back as 2004.

Cory Booker was not even one of the first to throw his name in the ring.

He's middle of the pack, kind of in every way.

Two men wrongfully convicted of murders have walked free after serving a quarter century in prison.

Sean Washington and Kevin Baker just left New Jersey State Prison here in Trenton.

They had been in prison since 1996 for double murder conviction.

Tackling the toughest and most critical issues, but saving time to have some fun and enjoy what makes this state unique.

We are the people in your neighborhood.

In your neighborhood.

We are the people in your neighborhood.

We're the people that you meet when you're walking down the street.

We're the people that you meet each day.

[music playing] What most of us here in Jersey know as the Asbury Park music scene began long before the big man joined the band.

You've been here for how long?

Since 1932.

Born and raised here in Asbury Park all our lives.

Temple of Knowledge.

My grandmother read Bruce Springsteen.

Read Bruce Springsteen's poem.

Yes.

Many many years ago.

Hi everyone.

I'm Michael Aaron.

Welcome back to NJ TV's live in your neighborhood special from Trenton.

Our coverage of the halls of power in Trenton as controversial legislation was debated and landmark laws were enacted.

Angry parents yelled at health assembly committee members.

A seven-year-old shot the two-finger bird.

$15 minimum wage bill passed the Assembly 52 to 25 and the Senate 23 to 16.

Unforgettable scenes of activists taking on power brokers.

I am here today to speak for myself.

Then in March 2020, everything changed.

It has been a day like no other in our recent history.

Our studio is closed, but the coronavirus pandemic is unfolding hour by hour, and we will be here in some format or another to bring you the latest information.

- This is personal.

My 89-year-old mother last April was in a long-term care facility and contracted the virus.

of her health conditions, she really had no chance, no chance to survive.

Dr.

Nizar Kafaya wants the public to see, so he gave us protective gear to walk through the I.C.U.

And another patient floor at Hudson Regional Hospital.

These benches now have these signs which say one party per bench.

I'm in an ideal situation.

No one around social distancing is being maintained today.

executive order that will lift the statewide indoor mask mandate.

It's a great day for most students in Patterson who returned to their school buildings for the first time in 18 months.

But not all kids got to walk into their classroom today.

And this time you can't blame COVID.

That's due to the tropical storm Ida.

Rain falling at a biblical three to five inches an hour forced floodwaters onto streets and highways across New Jersey, an unexpected and deadly assault by the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida that caught most folks and officials completely by surprise.

-Coronado knew he had to act fast, literally diving into the water, swimming across the street to the shelter, knowing that more than 80 cats and dogs had no way to escape.

In the midst of the shutdown, NJTV News merged newsrooms with NJ Spotlight, giving birth to NJ Spotlight News.

From NJ PBS, this is NJ Spotlight News with Briana Vannozzi.

You knew what you were getting yourself into, and yet you know what we hear repeatedly from you?

It's always the previous administration's fault or Donald Trump's fault.

(cheering and applause) That's because it's the truth.

Governor Murphy underscored New Jersey's status as an abortion sanctuary state just one week after the U.S.

Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The reason I signed these bills, the reason why we've been in the fight, is for social justice.

I've been smoking since 1960 and I've been waiting my whole life for today.

How can you describe St.

Peter's stunning run in the NCAA tournament?

Pandemonium.

5, 2, 3, 4.

That's what we're fighting for.

We covered refugee families fleeing wars and making new life here in the Garden State.

Panic started when Valentina Condira got a call from her daughter, Oksana Condin, who lives here in Jersey City that the war on Ukraine had started.

We have friends and family all over Ukraine, and it's really difficult.

And some of the biggest political scandals of the last few years.

Breaking news today, the jury in the corruption trial of US Senator Bob Menendez has handed down a sweeping guilty verdict, 18 counts in total.

A bill advocates warn will gut access to government records got the green light today from a key legislative committee approving controversial reforms to New Jersey's Open Public Records Act.

This approach that you're taking is kind of taking a bazooka to shoot a fly.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis was at the hearing in Newark Federal Court and has the latest.

Joanna.

Yeah, Briana, today Congresswoman LaMonica McGyver pled not guilty to charges brought against her by the U.S.

government.

Those charges come from an altercation that can be seen in ICE video showing a physical confrontation between McGyver and federal agents.

Welcome to Reporters Roundtable.

I'm Michael Aaron.

We lost our beloved colleague, Michael Aaron, our chief political correspondent, dean of the Statehouse Press Corps, and North Star.

For years, we kept a close eye on New Jersey transit, the Gateway Tunnel, a decades-long political battle to build new train tunnels under the Hudson River.

We were there for consequential elections, the continuing fight over immigration and political fallouts up until the very end.

Thanks to the help of so many talented people who have worked in this newsroom, both in front of and behind the camera, past and present.

That is just a small snippet of what are thousands of stories in our archives, thousands of hours spent on those stories.

I'm joined now by a couple of friends, Mary Alice Williams, former anchor, NJTV News, Brenda Flanagan, former senior correspondent, NJ Spotlight News, and of course, our own Joanna Gagis.

It is great to have the ladies of NJ TV and NJ PBS back together here.

Mary Alice, I'm thinking about all of the changes that happened when you came on and anchored and helmed this ship.

What stands out to you from that time?

What was different about being in a public media newsroom?

Well, everything was different.

But what we did that was, I think, essential was that NJPBS, or whatever it was called, it went through several names, had been on the air a long time.

And they did have reporters like the sainted Michael Aaron, but it was more like C-SPAN than it was really showing off the Garden State with, I don't know, its own education and health care and environment and industry and all of the issues that make it a state.

You know, Benjamin Franklin said that New York would be a mere apostrophe between New York and Philadelphia, and it had been until we went on the air and we started to show it off by being in your neighborhood, by hiring this band of intrepid, brilliant reporters to go out there and show us who we are.

And that was really the most important thing we did.

- When you started MA, we were operating out of what was then the Dumont Center, actually, at Montclair University, a tiny little classroom.

And then you would put on a jacket or a rain jacket and an umbrella and schlep across campus to go record.

And then we went into New York while our beautiful home in Newark was being built.

We had a lot of fun though, too, which is something that stands out to me when I watch the stories.

- We had so many.

There are so many stories, and most of them backstories that the audience never saw.

But when we were in the studio at Lincoln Center, there was a fire.

The ceiling of the studio caught fire as we were on the air, and there are flames and things falling down.

And our brilliant producer, Gideon Butler, kept running stuff so that the audience never saw the danger we were in as everybody was evacuated.

There were five, seven fire trucks, I think, came.

Very funny.

- Brenda, we sent you on, and you volunteered for, some of the most, I would say, treacherous stories, traumatic stories.

You are our own Barbara Walters, if I can say that.

There was nothing that we couldn't throw at you, that you didn't just hit out of the park.

- Oh, Bree, that is amazing praise, and thank you very much.

But you know what?

We live in New Jersey, so of course we're gonna go out and talk to people who are experiencing living through these stories.

And it was a privilege, it was an honor to be able to bring these stories to our viewers.

You saw a video of us walking through an ICU during COVID.

Let me set that scene for you, how we actually got in there.

It was April, 2020.

I'm in the parking lot talking to the doctor, who's the CEO.

And he's telling me that we don't have enough nurses.

We don't have enough beds.

We don't have enough ventilators.

And I said, "Let's show viewers what's going on.

Would you take me in there?"

And he said, "Yes."

And I was shocked because I never thought that he would let us in.

And I asked our photographer, Maddy Rosen, "Are you willing to go?"

He said, "Yes, let's do it."

So we put on the Tyvek, we put on the masks.

And as we're going through, the scene was just amazing.

And I thought, now people will actually see what this virus is doing and maybe understand what's going on, a little bit more about what's going on around.

You don't think at that moment what you're doing, you're thinking about the story you're telling.

And I think that's a hallmark of all of the reporters that would come out of our newsroom every single day and work and let people know this is your neighborhood.

Yeah, and Joanna, I'm going to come to you next, but that's a testament to you, Brenda, to you, Mary Alice, the way that you led the newsroom, the way that you offered support, mentorship, guidance, you know, allowing everyone to follow in your path.

I think that was something that was so beautiful.

And I think that's one of the privileges of working with a small team, because there are newsrooms that are much larger than ours, but something that I think made ours so special is the camaraderie and the way we did work together.

And we did jump in and we did, you know, volunteer.

Brenda was the one always putting her hands up for the stories, but she led by example and others followed.

And I would like to think that I have been at least some, you know, learned something from her in terms of what it means to cover any topic on any given day, give it your all and dive deep so that the viewer understands the nuance, not just the story, but the nuance and what's going on kind of layers deep in that story.

But yeah, working with this team has been incredible.

I mean, we've gotten to do so much over the years across so many different topics.

I think about my own coverage from being there when Menendez was found guilty, finally in the second trial on 18 counts, to looking at schools and the impact of COVID closing on students.

And while Brenda was looking at the health aspects, I really got to talk to families and see what the impact was of those who had really just been left out with no avenue.

By the way, myself included as a working mom of two kids at that time and trying to figure it all out, being there when schools were reopening And then when schools were not reopening and these kids were just falling behind and then years of looking at the impact of that.

I think about talking to Bridget Ann Kelly, who was exonerated by the US Supreme Court after her involvement in the Bridgegate scandal.

Just so many moments over the years of all the different things we've had the chance to tell, all the stories we've had the chance to tell, really special.

- Emma, you know, we always say as journalists, we're not part of the story, but we did all live through a lot of these stories.

That's what it is when you live and work in your community.

I think about all of the times that, you know, a show maybe almost didn't make it or because we were having breaking news or news was coming in, flying in as we were on the air and everyone having to regroup, you regrouping, reworking the newscast, all of those things, those sort of peek behind the curtain that nobody gets to see because then you come on air poised and clothed and sharp as a tack.

- Well, that is the news business, but what made it unique at NJTV is the people of New Jersey who came out of their homes and their restaurants and their businesses to talk to us, to tell us the problems, to share ideas about what was working or what wasn't and how we could help each other.

It is the most diverse state in the country and it's the quintessential example of that Business 101 rule.

All of us are better than any of us.

We couldn't have done it without the people of New Jersey.

- What do you miss most?

Everyone's final thoughts.

What will you miss or what will you take with you from our time together, MA?

- I miss all of you every day.

I miss our Christmas parties and Halloween costumes and all the stuff we did behind the scenes.

- At your house, thank God for that.

- Singing, caroling, but mostly I miss just being there every day, looking at what the people of New Jersey were doing.

- Briana, what have you taken?

You've retired.

What did you take with you from our time together?

- I have to tell you, it's really hard to unplug from the news.

- Shocking for you, yeah.

- It's very difficult, but I have to say, I miss the newsroom so much.

I miss all of the people.

I mean, where else could you have a nerf battle and then turn around and report the news?

It was so much fun.

- A big force.

- Everybody, there were no enemies.

It was a lovely working environment.

Everyone was dedicated to putting the absolute best show on the air.

I miss that.

I miss all of the people.

You guys, you're fabulous.

And the show, it was an honor and a privilege to work with every single one of you.

It's been a lot of fun.

It's been a lot of things, but it's been a lot of fun.

Joanna, what will be your fondest memory?

- If I can get through this without crying.

It's the people, it's the coworkers who've become friends, who are dear friends, all of you.

But it's the trust of going out on a story and having the responsibility of telling someone's story and the trust they put in you to tell that story.

I have always carried that as a heavy weight or a heavy calling and duty.

There's something so special about that and, you know, someone allowing you to do that for them.

And then really just kind of learning every day.

This is a job where you never stop learning.

It's one day I'm talking about energy and the next I'm talking about women's health care and the next it's education.

And so it's kind of jack of all trades, maybe master of none, but really the just the learning constantly and challenging myself and growing.

But if I come back to one thing, it's the friendships.

- Agreed, master of all, I would say.

And it's been biggest privilege to get to work alongside all of you for everything that you have taught me and everyone else.

Thank you, thanks for being here.

- Thank you, Brie.

- Thank you for doing this.

- And I do wanna say that our colleague, Michael Hill, wanted to be here today to share some of his favorite memories he couldn't, but Joanna Gagis is still here with me.

Joe, this year, I think you'll agree, has been one very long goodbye, saying goodbye to many of our colleagues last summer when the CPB shut down and then as they were slowly leaving the station and then to our studio in late April, it's definitely not how we imagined being here on our final day.

We can say that.

We can absolutely say that being remote in this new format that we've all tried to adjust to, but I just want to ask you and point out to our viewers, you've been with New Jersey Public Television back from the NJN days all the way through the many iterations of this version of NJPBS and I'm curious what you will take with you.

What are your strongest fondest memories?

It has been.

It's been a long great ride of working with so many incredible people who have helped me, helped me to see better standards as a journalist, to hold my line on that.

It's definitely the relationships.

I think something that's been really comforting to me has been the people who have reached out in the last several months and obviously in this last week, wishing us well and saying that they'll miss us, they'll miss the way that we told the story.

That has been really comforting, not just people who were in state government, but the random people on the street who we got to meet, the AC Casino dealer.

When I sat down in that chair in March of 2020, the world was shutting down.

None of us knew what the next day was going to look like, what the next month or year was going to look like.

We just knew that everyone was coming to us for information.

And so that work never changed, despite a lot of changes that we had internally.

And I am so grateful for the Elvin Badgers and Jamie Crafts of the world, and Mallory Massara for editing, up until the final minute, this show, and Katie Christ and Julie Dario and Sebastian Bednarski and Jen Eckert, who jumped in to produce this show when we had no one and nothing and begged her and she did it.

And to all of you, this has been the greatest, greatest privilege of my life and to our audience as well.

Joanna, we're gonna leave it there.

I wanna say that there are very, very few jobs in this life that allow you to be invited into people's lives day after day.

I have never forgotten what a privilege that is.

It has been one of the greatest honors of my career to have the responsibility of this role during some of the most uncertain times this world has ever experienced.

And I thank you to our audience for staying with us through it all.

We showed up, but you stayed with us.

You allowed us into your homes and phones and cars and inboxes.

You came to our community events, to our forums.

You sent in questions.

You were with us.

You've been so loyal, and that is why we do this work for you.

And so after 18 years, it is our sign-off, my sign-off, 15 years here at NJ Spotlight News.

But this is never goodbye.

It is until we see you again.

So thank you, New Jersey, and good night.

Good night to NJ Spotlight News.

(upbeat music) - NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

(upbeat music)