Local news deserves high marks for coverage of the doge fallout

Reporters are telling gripping human stories, connecting the dots from DC to main street, going beyond acronyms to explain what government agencies do & giving voice to concerns of regular people

Local news is doing what it does best: build trust by reporting on stories local residents can verify with their own eyes. Recently, much of that reporting has focused on the local impact of the reckless actions of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Fired USDA bird flu scientists. Shuttered Head Start programs. Angry voters confronting GOP Congressmen about doge. It’s all part of a monumental story playing out every day on trusted local news outlets from the TV newscasts in Chicago, to newspapers in Kansas and digital news sites stretching from Nevada to New Hampshire.

I’ve spent my journalism career working in local newsrooms and I’m very impressed by the quality of work. It’s timely, often gut wrenching and impactful. Equally, in an era when people doubt the news, it feels authentic.

One of the biggest stories across America is the growing anger aimed at Musk and Trump revealed in numerous town hall meetings this week. In Yucca Valley, California, the Hi-Desert Star witnessed the shouts of’ ‘no kings’ and ‘do your job’ at Republican Congressman Jay Obernolte’s Saturday morning town hall. In Milwaukee, TMJ4 was there as the crowd booed claims that Doge was proving successful. In Tulsa, News on 6 reported on calls for congressional hearings. In Georgia, multiple news outlets covered the overflow crowd that jeered Republican Rich McCormick especially when he compared the crowd to the January 6th rioters.

Shouts of “liar, liar” erupt at a California town hall meeting. Photo Credit: Stacy Moore/ Hi-Desert Star

In an interesting role reversal, the heated town hall meetings have quickly become national news and the numerous video clips are sweeping across social media. Much of that anger stems from the callous firing of federal workers. Local news throughout America is filled with stories about the remarkable work these people were doing for our country and the horrible way they’ve been treated by Musk and Trump.

This first-person account of the deceitful firing process from an Illinois USDA worker in the Champaign News Gazette stood out: "There is no civility in this, no courage, no honor, no consideration for the citizen employee." On Iowa’s KCCI-TV, fired National Park Ranger Brian Gibbs said “It felt merciless. I felt violated, very disheartening."

In the Salt Lake Tribune, Allison Stegner, a researcher for the National Geological Survey in Utah questioned whether any of this really has to do with cost-savings: “Now, rather than paying income taxes in Utah and continuing to work sustaining the health of the federal lands that fuel Utah’s economy, I am applying for unemployment in Utah.”

Local journalists are tracking the negative impacts of these massive changes on their communities. That impressive reporting includes stories like these:

• In Kansas, the big story is the millions of bushels of sorghum crops going to waste since Trump nixed the Eisenhower-era “Food for Peace” international aid program that farmers there rely on.

• In North Carolina,journalists are covering how Trump’s purge of the U.S. Forest Service included workers helping rebuild roads destroyed by Hurricane Helene.

• Across the west, the local press is busy reporting on fears that beloved National Parks like Yosemite, The Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone will suffer with greatly reduced numbers of seasonal workers during the busy summer season. The stories include predictions of clogged toilets, overflowing trash bins, reduced park hours, and degraded trails and roads.

Some of the very best work comes from the non-profit States Newsroom group. It has reporters in every single state capital and it’s free. Not only is there no paywall, but States Newsroom also shares its stories with other news outlets looking for expanded coverage. There’s also a designated team that Communications Director Lara Weber says, “looks across the country every day for patterns and trends -- stories that connect the dots on issues that cross state lines.” She adds:

“...while Elon Musk and his young staff take over the financial and tech systems of the federal government (which our DC Bureau reporters have been covering), our reporters based in our state outlets wrote about Republican efforts to set up similar "efficiency-minded" commissions in their states. Then Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy took a step back and wrote about that state-level trend from a national perspective.”

These are not easy stories to tell. No journalist can count on the Trump administration for reliable information. Elon Musk is also a black hole for truth. A Chicago TV news manager told me “We have a responsibility as journalists now more than ever to separate fact from fiction, to explain things, to call out what’s not true.”

That work is complicated by the fact that some news sources are afraid of retribution. This is just one of many stories where the very people hurt by doge layoffs are afraid to let reporters use their names. An Atlanta journalist told me “All of these stories are difficult because there is a lot of fear. No one wants to speak on the record. We worked for two days to confirm the DOGE agents were inside the CDC.” Lucky for us, no one appears to be shying away from the work just because it's challenging.

The last few years have been brutal for local news. The business model is broken. But the need for local news remains, and the chaotic first month of Trump’s term has shown that local reporters are still up to the task. Reporters are telling gripping human stories, connecting the dots from DC to main street, going beyond acronyms to explain what government agencies do, giving a voice to the concerns of regular people, holding Musk and Trump to account and, perhaps most importantly in our divided America, rebuilding trust and giving ordinary Americans the chance to be heard.

It would be both ironic and so very American if the rich and powerful oligarchs were finally stopped by the underfunded newsrooms and working-class reporters.