Journalists Dropped the Ball on George Santos
Journalists Dropped the Ball on George Santos
Except for one small newspaper that nobody paid attention to
As I write this, New York Republican Congressman-elect George Santos is still scheduled to be sworn into the U.S. House next Tuesday. By the time you read this, perhaps Santos will have stepped down or Republican leaders in the House will have told him to stay home. But that would require somebody to grow a spine and the chances of THAT happening, I realize, are slim to none.
How did we get to a place in this country where a 34-year-old candidate can tell lie after lie and nobody figured it out before election day? Well, it turns out somebody DID figure it out, or at least strongly suspected that something was off about this guy. Hats off to The North Shore Leader, a small newspaper on Long Island’s north shore. According to The Washington Post, the newspaper started writing about Santos in September, but nobody paid attention. Not Santos’ Democratic opponent, not Republican party leaders, and most tragic of all, no major news outlets in the New York area.
The North Shore Leader even endorsed the Democrat in the race despite its normal practice. The paper wrote, “This newspaper would like to endorse a Republican, but Santos is so bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy that we cannot.” The editorial called him “a fake”.
I don’t understand how somebody didn’t pick up on this and blow the Santos campaign out of the water before voters elected him to office. Now the GOP has an embarrassing mess on its hands.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, starting primarily with Santos. But where was the Democratic incumbent’s opposition research? Where were the people who knew he didn’t work at New York investment houses, and knew he didn’t have a college degree like he claimed? Why didn’t they call his opponent, or a bigger newspaper or TV station to investigate Santos’ claims? Maybe they did, but the New York media had bigger fish to fry than some upstart candidate out on Long Island. Or maybe it’s a symptom of reduced newsroom staffs not having the resources to pursue the tips. Thankfully, The New York Times blew the cover off the story, but two months after election day is a little late.
Having covered politics for more than 40 years in Iowa, we would occasionally get tips from the public with damaging information about a candidate. Tips about inappropriate touching. Tips about affairs. Tips about visiting certain businesses where a guy running on family values ought not to go. It’s not common, but it’s not unusual, either. It presents a dilemma for any journalist who gets a scandalous tip that may or may not be true. The journalist risks upsetting powerful people just by nosing around and asking questions to see if there’s anything to it. But that’s our job, and if we don’t do it, voters could end up with a “fake” guy representing them in Congress for the next two years.
Any journalist I know in Iowa who got a tip that said a candidate for federal office was claiming he went to a certain college, or claiming he held important jobs but none of it was true – well, any halfway decent reporter would run so fast that they’d knock over their grandmother to lock down the story. That kind of information is easy to check out with a few phone calls. It would be a helluva scoop.
This could possibly come down to the difference between Iowa, with our four congressional seats, and New York, with 27. It’s harder to hide here. Harder to tell bald-faced lies. Hard to say you graduated from Grinnell College or worked at Principal without somebody there saying, “George who?”
Our smaller numbers also give us a better chance to ask our Republican House members Zach Nunn, Randy Feenstra, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Ashley Hinson how they feel about serving with Santos. They’ve said nothing to date. If they can’t condemn George Santos, I don’t know how they can look themselves in the mirror any more than Santos can.
My prediction? Santos can’t last. He might get sworn in Tuesday, but the heat will be too intense for him to stay long. I also predict that from now on, journalists will do a much better job of checking out candidates’ resumes to see what is true and what is complete BS.
In the business world, if you lie on your resume it is a firing offense. Relationships are built on trust. While many elected officials are trustworthy, many are not -- and if we elect them with the knowledge that they are liars, why would we be surprised when they lie again? Thanks for the column and illustrating that journalism has a role in uncovering dishonesty as well as celebrating accomplishments.
Thanks for this important message in another great column, Dave. Iowa is not free of shenanigans that stretch credibility, though George Santos’ lies are whoppers! Thanks to Laura Belin, we now know that incumbent Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks changed her home address to a friend’s home in the newly configured district she represents, at the last possible hour on the final date allowed and close to Election Day. Local media informed us about Iowa Senator Jack Whitver’s suspicious second address, again a decision made to conform to the newly configured district boundaries. Gratefully, local media also informed us of the integrity demonstrated by State Senator Sarah Trone-Garriott when she moved with her husband and two young children to her newly formed district; voters returned her to the Iowa Senate in November. Then again, I’m still scratching my head about how Iowa’s political landscape has changed. Regardless, I share your wonder about how Santos can look himself in the mirror with these “exaggerations”, as he called them.