The George Santos disaster is a direct consequence of the collapse of local news
After theNew York Times and other publications reported that newly elected Rep. George Santos probably didn’t descend from Holocaust survivors or run an animal-protection charity, or [gestures broadly] any of it, many suggested that it would have been more helpful for the press to dig into this before the election.
“This would all have been exposed before the election if local newspapers were not running on fumes,” tweeted former Sen. Claire McCaskill.
A few news cycles later it emerged that actually, the local press had reported on the Santos story. A local paper, the North Shore Leader, had declared that the Republican nominee was “most likely just a fabulist—a fake.”
So which is it: The triumph of the local press or a sign of its demise? More the latter, though for some surprising reasons.
Let’s start with the scoop. In September, the North Shore Leader reported that Santos’ financial disclosure form in 2020 claimed no assets over $5,000:
And his income was only just over $50,000 for the prior year, derived from a venture fund called “Harbor Hill Capital” that was closed and seized in 2020 by U.S. federal prosecutors as a “Ponzi Scheme.” Santos was the New York Director of that “fund.”
Now, in a filing dated Sept. 6, 2022, Santos claims his assets are now as much as $11 million, including personal bank accounts of between $1 million and $5 million; a condo in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, of between $500,000 and $1 million; and business interests of between $1 million and $5 million.
The paper, whose staff had been hearing rumors of various Santos concoctions for a while, followed up with that stinging editorial calling him a fraud.
Then . . . nothing happened. No other media outlets pursued the story. Not the six local TV stations or WNYC, or Politico, New York, the Times, the Daily News. Not even Newsday, the formerly-august news source for Long Island. Grant Lally, the publisher and owner of the North Shore Leader, told me he didn’t get a single call from another publication inquiring about it. “If this had run 25 years ago, it would have been gobbled up,” he said. “There’d have been 20 follow-ups from Newsday and other publications and the weeklies.”
Topic: Some idiot said, "only trust your local news" ehh? Do you agree with his point?? (Read 291 times)