Many in the aggrieved NY-03 Congressional district are blaming the George Santos calamity on the failure of local press – when actually it underscores the failure of communities (residents) to support their local press, especially amid the changes in digital journalism and social media that have upended their financial viability.

Even The New York Times was blamed for not allocating scarce resources sufficient to cover any but the marquee congressional contests, and the Democratic candidate, Robert Zimmerman, bemoaned having tried to alert the media to Santos’ deception, only to fail to spark the investigations that only came after the election.

Well, one of the local papers did publish – the North Shore Leader had sounded the alarm months earlier, but no one paid attention.

And yet local press are the ones to uncover monumental corruption –Mississippi Today broke the story about $77 million in welfare funds in the poorest state of the nation embezzled by a former governor and friends, which included steering money to pet projects, like the $7 million volleyball stadium at Bret Favre’s daughter’s college and the Jackson water crisis scandal that finally brought in federal help.

Santos told broadcaster Piers Morgan he felt he could get away with his litany of lies because he had already gotten away with it in the 2020 election– a lesson in the need to hold those who would undermine our election process to account.

In fact, he had a stunning role model in this: Donald Trump and has 33,000 lies while in office and the Biggest Lie of All, regurgitated in localities around the nation, sufficient to rally thousands to commit violence.

Indeed, throughout these years, Trump – and now his mini-me, Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis – undermined trust in the press, calling any report that criticized him, published the latest accusations or prosecutions “fake news” – the language of dictators like Stalin and Putin – while propping up the media outlets that propagated disinformation and propaganda that served his interests.

The Santos debacle underscores the importance of local press – we see it every day – in the way the Nassau County Republicans can ram through gerrymandering redistricting and completely ignore the public outcry against their map, and in the failure of the Blakeman administration to effectively tap into once-in-a-century federal and state resources ($4 trillion!) to address the county’s biggest issues that would be ruinous to tackle on its own.

Without a robust local press – and an engaged readership – officials can wield enormous power and abuse their office – and get away with it. But when there is effective local reporting, locals are engaged and those who represent them, who control the purse strings, actually do have to be responsive.

This was the experience in Detroit.

“Newsrooms like Bridge Detroit, what we’re charged to do is understanding Detroit, identifying, addressing concerns, providing coverage that engages people in the democratic process and offers some level of transparency,” said Catherine Kelly, executive director and editor of the nonprofit, at a recent Knight Media Forum focused on new strategies to fund a robust local press. “It makes people feel empowered and can change their lives. A lot of our coverage has changed how our dollars are spent.”

For example, instead of the mayor using COVID relief for gunshot detection technology, “the constant drumbeat of housing info helped direct dollars to housing programs in Detroit –the city council proposed plan that passed that would provide assistance for renters facing eviction,” she said.

That’s why Desantis, like Trump before him, wants to control the press, passing a law to make it easier to sue journalists for defamation and libel (and thereby intimidate them from publishing altogether) and essentially overturning the long respected precedents that shield journalists.

In this scenario, dark money would play an even greater role in shaping a candidate’s image for voters, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

“The press is the only private sector institution called out in the Constitution,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. “It is important at the foundational level [of democracy].” The press has been given protection because it is widely recognized as the Fourth Estate – a watchdog of the powerful and privileged.

Indeed, under the 1934 Federal Communications Act, radio and television stations that sought licenses, were regarded as stewards of the public air waves with a responsibility to serve the public interest.

And despite a decades-long campaign of undermining confidence and trust in “mainstream” news, local press has remained one area that retains a high level of trust, higher than national media, according to a Gallup/Knight Foundation study.

But because the economic landscape for local press has been upended because of digital platforms like Google and social media, in order to survive many local media are seeing new life by going to a nonprofit model and finding support among foundations, philanthropies, sponsorships, memberships, and collaborations with public media and are even steering government advertising into local media.

“This is a moment in time when we have funders who have always thought about their No. 1 priority to be existential crises [climate change, gun violence, criminal justice reform, health care, education, housing]. But they are finding that if people aren’t informed about those things, they can’t act on them, and change can’t happen,” said Kristen Mack, spokeswoman for Fellows & Partnerships at the MacArthur Foundation. “The polarization that exists, the information polarization that exists, is because of these information deserts – that can only be addressed by insuring people get information from local news.”

“Whatever your first priority is journalism should be second; whatever you care about as a foundation,  journalism helps get better information out to the world,” said Jim Brady, vice president of the Knight Foundation.

But just as local media outlets need to reinvent themselves in order to be economically sustainable with adequate resources to research, report, and distribute information critical to a functioning community, the community has a responsibility to engage.

“Journalism without civic engagement and civic engagement without journalism don’t work,” said Jeff Cohen, senior adviser for new journalism nonprofit Arnold Ventures.

“The reason given by the media as to why Santos lies not being investigated before the election is an example to me why newspaper subscription is so important to our democracy,” commented Betsy Golan of Port Washington, who attended one of the Expel Santos rallies. “Paying readership supports newspapers’ financial health. Profitable newspapers can support sufficient reporters and reporting and sufficient reporting supports a more informed readership necessary to a voting public.”