When WCBS/880 AM had final approval of its all-news radio format in August, among the disappointed fans was the station’s former “voice of Long Island.”

Ellen Mitchell, 86, was the station’s Long Island reporter from 1980 to 1995. She covered some of the area’s most gripping stories, including the Amy Fisher “Long Island Lolita” case, the murder of Kelly Ann Tinyes in 1989 and Long Island. Mass shooting on the Island Rail Road in 1993. She had her own signature: “On Long Island, this is Ellen Mitchell.”

Mitchell, who now splits her time between Huntington and her home of 32 years in the Orient, said she has nearly 1,000 6-by-9-inch steno pads that she filled with notes as she crisscrossed Long Island as a reporter independently for two decades. She was so prominent locally that then-Gov. Mario Cuomo once called her family over dinner to ask if she would join his public relations staff; she said she declined the offer.

“She was the trailblazer for many of the other women who came after her because she broke into a field at a time when there weren’t many women doing what she was doing,” said her oldest child, Elisa McDonagh, 61, retired. physician in Centerport. “She got to pursue a passion she loved and was a role model for other women and her daughters to follow the path that brings you joy.”

Career path

In fact, Mitchell, whose maiden name is Mayer, said she “desperately wanted to be an architect,” but her parents said that’s not what women do. When she graduated from Freeport High School in 1956, she compromised and went to college to become an art teacher. It didn’t go well.

“I hated teaching with a vengeance,” Mitchell said of his two years at University High.

By then she was married to Paul Mitchell, a doctor. She said she happily quit teaching and settled into married life and raising her three children. But Mitchell, who now has eight grandchildren and a great-grandchild on the way, said that by the time the youngest was ready for elementary school in 1975, he was bored.

That child was Gail Mitchell, now 53 and an art conservator living in Brooklyn. She remembers her mother telling a story about being invited to play cards with other housewives in their Melville neighborhood. “She said they talked about a chandelier for an hour and she had to apologize. I think she just needed to be active in a different way than other local moms probably should.”

Ellen Mitchell recalled the moment things changed for her. “This was in the era when women were mainly in the kitchen and I heard a woman’s voice giving the local news. And I said, “I can speak better than she can.” “

So he headed to radio station WGSM, then based in Huntington. “I told them, ‘I don’t know anything about reporting. I don’t know anything about being a writer, but I have a big mouth, so I’d like to help out in your radio news department. She said she added the magic phrase that sealed her hire: “And I’ll do it for free.”

During her five years there, she said she covered the Nassau and Suffolk legislatures, local government meetings and homicides. He occasionally submitted stories about Long Island to WNEW in New York City. Then he heard WCBS/880 was looking for someone to cover the area. Mitchell began there in February 1980 as a freelance reporter, covering breaking events, government, politics, crime, courts and human interest, primarily on Long Island and occasionally in New York City.

START WITH A QUIP

Mitchell said he never forgot the advice a WGSM reporter gave him: The most important part of every story was its introduction, known as the lede. “He said, Ellen, if you learn anything here, it’s to take anyone who listens to you with lede; the rest is gravy.”

And so witty quips became her signature opening lines. She learned on the job how to be a journalist, getting to know detectives and police chiefs so she could get quotes and leads on stories. He had a tape recorder and a microphone, and either through a pay phone or occasionally through a random homeowner’s phone, he would send his reports to WCBS.

Every day was exciting, Mitchell said. She recalled filling in for the city office and covering a hostage situation. She went into a phone booth on the deserted street to report live, a short distance from the action.

“I’m in the middle of the report and the anchor suddenly comes out and says, ‘Ellen, get the hell out of the phone booth.’ You are in the line of fire. The cops just called. She added happily: “It was good radio.”

She said she was among the first on the scene when Fisher was brought to Nassau County police headquarters after shooting the wife of her boyfriend, Joey Buttafuoco, and soon found herself getting to know Buttafuoco and his family. LIRR killer Colin Ferguson called her from prison offering her an exclusive on-air interview – which she said the station turned him down. Mitchell said she was disappointed because she thought it would have attracted many radio listeners.

MINEOLA PRESS ROOM

She was based in the Mineola press room of the Nassau County Courthouse, along with reporters from media outlets including Newsday, Channel 11, News 12, the Daily News, the Associated Press, the New York Post and UPI.

“We were a very united group. Everyone on Long Island: Suffolk and Nassau police departments, executives, officers, politicians, detectives, PR people for companies were calling us all the time, coming in and talking to us,” she said. “It was really an information clearinghouse.”

It was the place to be, agreed Vicki Metz of Bayville, the assignment editor for Channel 7’s “Eyewitness News” from 1987 to 2009. “You knew you really made it if you worked in that room. There really was a camaraderie. . . I enjoyed working there.”

Also in the newsroom was Irving Long, 85, of Rockingham, North Carolina, a Newsday reporter who covers politics. “Ellen was the No. 1 radio reporter. 1 in my opinion. . . She was tough. She was competitive. He was hard to beat. She is a great human being, not just a great reporter,” he said.

Another Newsday reporter and longtime friend, Shirley Perlman, 86, said Mitchell was called “the voice of CBS on Long Island because the range of what he reported was amazing. Most reporters specialize in one area – for me it was the Mineola courts – but whatever happened on Long Island, Ellen covered it.”

Perlman, who retired from Newsday in 2003 and now lives in Bondville, Vermont, said that although they were competitors, they met at 5:30 every morning before work to run three miles. I still talk almost every day.

Mitchell’s husband Paul — who died in 2022 — had a busy schedule with his medical practice in Plainview, so much of her radio career was juggling her reporting with her children’s schedule. All three said they have fond memories of her career.

McDonagh, a mother of four, said it was always thrilling to hear her mother’s name on the radio. “Whether she was in the eye of the hurricane or she was interviewing someone, we had an idea of ​​where she was based on where she said she was reporting from.”

Her son, Jim Mitchell, 60, of Irvington, N.Y., recalled riding the press float after one of the Islanders’ Stanley Cup victories. But what made an indelible impression was going to court with his mother, especially the day in 1982 when five men were arraigned for a rampage at the Seacrest Diner in Old Westbury. “I enjoyed watching the lawyers in court,” he said.

Although she doesn’t remember it, Mitchell said the teenager turned to her and said he would do it one day. He is now a high-profile criminal defense attorney at Ballard Spahr LLP, often fielding reporters’ questions for his clients.

“There weren’t many mothers who did something like that back then. . . Now I deal with reporters all the time and it gives you a very different perspective and appreciation for how hard it is,” he said.

As the youngest, Gail Mitchell said she spent the most time at work with her mother, often going to the newsroom after school. She came to know what she called “the cast of characters” and remembers a newsletter where reporters would run alternate headlines that could never be published.

A favorite memory was when her mother took her to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey at dawn to fly in a helicopter with WCBS traffic reporter Neal Busch. “I had my camera and I was able to sit next to him while he reported live,” she said. “I still have the photos I took that morning.”

PRIZES AND A BOOK

Mitchell won several awards for her news coverage, including from the New York State Broadcasting Association for excellence in spot news coverage of the fatal 1983 Grucci fireworks explosion and the 1990 crash of Avianca Flight 52 in Cove Neck. But her long run at WCBS ended due to a change in her employment status.

Mitchell said she was never on staff at the station and was paid as a freelancer. He also wrote articles for The New York Times and Newsday and shared story information with other radio stations. In 1995, she said, WCBS asked her to become a staff member, which meant giving up writing for anyone else and the freedom to cover the stories she wanted. So he quit at 57. (In a 1995 Daily News article, a WCBS official declined to comment on the issue.)

Mitchell continued to advertise for North Shore Health System for five years and became a regular contributor to Newsday, including writing a weekly column, “Connections,” for the section. She also wrote a book related to one of those articles, “Beyond Tears: Living After Losing a Child,” about women whose children have died. It was published by St. Martin’s Griffin in 2004.

Mitchell officially retired from freelancing about 15 years ago. Of her time as a radio reporter, she said: “I could never do it today. The schedule was crazy. I don’t have that kind of energy to be so busy and go and go.”

These days she said she is focused on photography and was almost convinced by her children to write a book about her years in the Mineola newsroom. Of WCBS/880’s final days, she said, “I was devastated to hear it closed. They really knew what they were doing with news, so I’m going to miss that. I think of my time there as the glory days of radio news.”