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@dankennedy_nu @jeff @BostonAbrams Good piece -- and I think it actually reinforces the point. (I don't give the Times the pass you do, they have 1,200 journalists and cover mayoral politics with glee, they prioritize prediction and other parts of politics)

@jeff @BostonAbrams @melaniesill If the point is that local news is dying, then the local weekly’s article contradicts it rather than reinforces it. Did you know, for instance, that there was good local coverage of the Flint water crisis? But no one paid attention until the national media swooped in. https://grist.org/article/the-goldman-prize-missed-the-black-heroes-of-flint-just-like-the-media-did/

@dankennedy_nu @jeff @BostonAbrams Well, hmm. My point is that the loss of local reporting has a (demonstrated) negative impact on people's ability to get important information. In this case, a weekly outlet did some vetting - but other local media failed to do that or to pick up on it. I don't think it contradicts anything about the crisis in local news. And in fact supports my point that good local journalism and local newspapers aren't the same thing.

@EdSanders @dankennedy_nu @jeff @BostonAbrams Think we can stay civil (this isn't twitter, thank goodness).

My original post wasn't about #Santos. But looking at this in terms of the job of #journalists and #LocalNews (different from job of political parties), it seems most voters were in the dark about the candidate's background before they cast ballots. And the response to the post-election reporting shows that the information has had impact, and likely will have more, despite being late.

@melaniesill @dankennedy_nu @jeff@newsie.social @BostonAbrams@newsie.social
Unfortunately, this is where I came in. I absolutely agree that there is a crisis in local journalism, I just can’t agree it’s the issue here, or more broadly, the root of our larger problems. A good portion of the electorate was uninformed, (I’m betting not as many as are claiming that now) but the problem is that they didn’t care.

Also, it makes me sick to think some people will take my words as a “what about” distraction, not my intent at all.

@melaniesill @dankennedy_nu @jeff@newsie.social @BostonAbrams@newsie.social
The Republicans in Congress could end this farce in a day, but they won’t.

@dankennedy_nu @jeff @EdSanders @BostonAbrams

Getting back to our discussion, this @washingtonpost story on the small paper that reported on #Santos pre-election touches on connections to the loss of local news capacity:

https://wapo.st/3vsHIg2

Beyond numbers, it’s about using resources on reporting that might not offer immediate payoff (i.e. candidate vetting). I’ve seen outlets that used to claim elections as a franchise shift to barely covering them.

@melaniesill @jeff @EdSanders @BostonAbrams As I’m sure you noticed, several senior people at Newsday are among the Leader’s subscribers. I could go back 25 years, when the Boston media were furious with a Republican political consultant for not warning them that a congressman he was working for might lose. These issues are not new, and they exist separately from the problem of news deserts. Long Island is not a news desert.

@dankennedy_nu @jeff @EdSanders @BostonAbrams Thanks, but I never said “news desert.” The local news crisis is about much more than the loss of newspapers. And to get back to the point of my original post last week, we need to be thinking about what local news needs to be beyond the count of local newspapers.

@EdSanders @jeff @melaniesill @BostonAbrams I did not mean to put “news desert” in your mouth. Overall, though, I’m not sure this fits into any paradigm other than journalistic sloth and arrogance, which has always been a problem. We have always failed to vet candidates whom we deem to have no chance of winning, and every so often we get burned. That’s the point I was trying to make.