The news is trying lately, at least for those who still read it.

That complicates the push to save local journalism. It gets lost in the daily cacophony emanating from Washington, D.C.

Yet I believe a root cause of the political chaos is the loss of trusted, robust, local news organizations.

The erosion began two decades ago when half the country began losing local newspapers and the civic values, knowledge and common ground they provided. Social media, cable news and other replacements seem to be having the opposite effect.

My antidote to this depressing situation is to look at work journalists continue doing at local news outlets across the country.

More than half of U.S. counties are now news deserts, with little to no local reporting happening. More than a third of local papers are gone and two-thirds of newsroom jobs disappeared over the last two decades.

But there are oases and other communities with strong local newspapers and online news organizations showing why we can’t give up or turn away from the news.

This work continues despite government leaders now openly attacking and interfering with the press, and a public that may be more worked up about the new season of “White Lotus” than the fate of the First Amendment.

That’s on top of newsrooms thinned by layoffs and consolidation, and the likelihood of further cuts and closures in 2025.

Here’s a sample:

• Sara DiNatale of The San Antonio Express-News last week received a prestigious George Polk Award for “exposing the deceptive practices of solar energy contractors who trained door-to-door scam artists to target elderly homeowners with false promises of energy savings that never materialized, rebates that didn’t exist and tax credits for which they didn’t qualify. On top of worthless systems those taken in were often left with damaged roofs.”

• The Polk Award for local reporting went to Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher of The Baltimore Banner, a nonprofit outlet launched in June 2022. It partnered with The New York Times to gather data to “establish that Baltimore was enduring the most lethal drug overdose crisis of any major city in American history with some surprising victims.” It had to sue the state medical examiner to obtain public records, including autopsy reports, needed to shine a light on the crisis.

Perusing the list of Local Matters, a newsletter I’ve written about before that highlights great investigative journalism, is also a balm. Among the stories it highlighted lately:

● A team at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans detailed the horrific truck attack on Bourbon Street and the city’s failure to follow its security barrier plans beforehand.

● The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed that a Georgia-based car loan company disabled the vehicles of thousands of paying customers, by misusing a GPS-based kill switch intended to disable cars when borrowers failed to pay.

● In Syracuse, N.Y., The Post-Standard reported on how private owners who took over a nursing home are pocketing millions while residents suffer.

● The Tennessean in Nashville reported that a private prison network had higher rates of inmate deaths and sexual abuse than state-run facilities, closed investigations prematurely and provided less behavioral and mental health treatment, as summarized by Local Matters.

● In Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch obtained an internal report showing that the state’s prisons are dangerously understaffed, with vacancy rates of 50% at three and some unable to comply with department policies.

● The Idaho Capital Sun, part of the nonprofit States Newsroom, revealed that a state attorney was paid $26,000 in accrued vacation when he left his job, only to return a few days later to another job at the same agency. It also put on the record top payouts received by other state employees in recent years.

This is the sort of journalism that every community in the U.S. deserves, holding local officials and institutions accountable, engaging the public and improving civic literacy and dialogue.

It will happen if the country’s independent, local news system is stabilized and given a chance to thrive again.

This is excerpted from the free, weekly Voices for a Free Press newsletter. Sign up to receive it at the Save the Free Press website, st.news/SavetheFreePress. Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley is the editor of the Free Press Initiative, which aims to inform the public about issues facing newspapers, local news coverage, and a free press. You can learn more about the Free Press Initiative, or sign up for a newsletter, at https://company.seattletimes.com/save-the-free-press/.