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Rep.-elect George Santos, R-N.Y., casts a vote during the seventh round of voting in the House chamber as the House meets for the third day to elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Hi and happy 2023!
Of all the strange things we saw as the Republican-led House tried to elect a speaker last week, a New York senator-elect who embellished, invented and lied about his background was right among them.
But George Santos’ story ([link removed]) was on my mind for another reason.
At the end of last year, Sarah Ellison reported for The Washington Post about the North Shore Leader ([link removed]) , which questioned Santos’ wealth and background months before The New York Times took up the story.
“The Leader reluctantly endorsed ([link removed]) Santos’s Democratic opponent the next month. ‘This newspaper would like to endorse a Republican,’ it wrote, but Santos ‘is so bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy that we cannot,’ adding, ‘He boasts like an insecure child — but he’s most likely just a fabulist — a fake.’”
The story goes on to point out a few of the reasons the Leader’s reporting didn’t get picked up more widely by the national press, including a shrinking news force. For The xxxxxx, Report for America’s Steve Waldman gets into the nuances of the local news ecosystem ([link removed]) and how it impacted this story.
All valid.
But there’s also at least a little precedent for local newsrooms breaking and continuing to cover huge stories with nothing happening until national steps in.
That was the case back in 2003, when the Albany (New York) Times Union started covering the man who’d later become well known for running a sex cult ([link removed]) whose victims included a famous actress. Here’s what I wrote in 2019:
The Albany (New York) Times Union’s coverage of Keith Raniere and his alleged cult ([link removed]) , Nxivm (pronounced nex-ee-um, like the medicine) began in 2003. It included Raniere’s attempt to build a headquarters, countless lawsuits against detractors and defectors, his questionable business, his history of preying on minors and the group he built around himself. A reporter working at Metroland, an alt-weekly in Albany, uncovered Raniere’s tactics for persuasion, how he silenced critics and his obsession with a former girlfriend.
But nothing stopped Raniere or the group until a 2017 New York Times story.
“Why Nxivm founder Keith Raniere is only now being tried … is a lingering mystery,” said an editorial ([link removed]) in the Times Union in May. “Officials here didn’t merely drop the ball; they never even picked it up.”
Watching the Santos story and rereading the Nxivm saga (from a very different time in local news) made me think that it doesn't just take a strong local and national press to stop liars, thieves and criminals. Even when there are layers and levels of reporting, without other institutions willing to do their jobs, these guys can fall through the cracks.
The ecosystem matters, and the oldest version of it is fractured and failing right now. But other institutions matter, too.
Here’s our coverage of The Sex Cult Next Door ([link removed]) .
The other thing that stands out when local coverage breaks through is how often it’s built from solid and well-resourced investigative teams. Through that approach, there are several recent examples where local coverage ignited important changes, including The Indianapolis Star’s investigation into Larry Nassar and child sex abuse inside U.S. Gymnastics ([link removed]) , the Miami Herald’s coverage of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ([link removed]) and the Tampa Bay Times’ investigation into a lead smelter that was poisoning employees and its community ([link removed]) .
What news are you following this year?
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Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights annually awards yearlong fellowships and grants for significant reporting projects. Fellows receive $10,000 each for projects on civil and/or human rights. Grants of $30,000 to $50,000 are awarded to local newsrooms and independent journalists for investigations into criminal justice abuse. Applications are currently open. The Fellowship deadline is Feb. 1, 2023. The Criminal Justice Grant deadline is Feb. 15, 2023.

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That’s it for me, thanks for reading and let’s all try not to lie about our resumes this year,

Kristen
Kristen Hare
Faculty
The Poynter Institute
@kristenhare ([link removed])
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