Damaso Reyes

Damaso Reyes is a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford and executive and investigative editor of the New York Amsterdam News, where he founded the Blacklight investigative unit. He is a journalist, photographer, media literacy expert, and solutions journalism trainer whose work focuses on under-covered communities, investigative reporting, misinformation, and inclusive journalism.

News Deserts Are Weakening Local Accountability and Shared Civic Facts

Hoover Institution panelists argued that the collapse of local journalism is weakening American democracy not just by shrinking newsrooms, but by reducing the number of reporters physically present to observe public institutions and supply shared facts. Neil Chase, Elizabeth Green and Vicki Liviakis described a replacement system built from specialized nonprofit outlets, local television, collaborations, community documenters and technology, while warning that legal threats, harassment, funding gaps and uneven philanthropic support are making local accountability reporting harder to sustain.

Hoover InstitutionJun 2, 202619 min read