Reporter’s Notebook by Eric Santomauro-Stenzel

Decatur, and Local News, in Distress

This week, we hand over our “editorial voice” to Senior Staff Writer Eric Santomauro-Stenzel. In his second “Reporter’s Notebook” column, Santomauro-Stenzel touches upon everything small, local newsrooms struggle with today, from why trust in the media is at a record low to staffing time constraints to lack of resources.

The Town of Decatur, an Otsego County jurisdiction with only 374 residents as of the 2020 census, appears to have not been the topic of a news article in several years. But a couple weeks ago, it became the subject of headlines ranging from Syracuse to Binghamton to Albany to rural Vermont, 15 minutes from the Canadian border (?). All because the Otsego County Sheriff’s Office put out a standard press release announcing that Decatur’s former town supervisor had been arrested for allegedly giving himself an unauthorized raise of over $2,000.

“Otsego County Ex-Town Supervisor Arrested, Charged with Grand Larceny and Official Misconduct,” read one headline, “Former Decatur town supervisor arrested for misappropriation of town funds,” another. The many pieces, often lacking bylines, had no new details that weren’t in the Sheriff’s Office press release. Two outlets falsely reported defendant Johnathan Kersman is currently town supervisor despite the title of the sheriff’s press release clearly saying “former;” one also misspelled his name in a broadcast. (Another outlet both said “the Town of Decatur supervisor” and “while” the accused “was” serving.) Yet another claimed New York State Police announced and made the arrest, though the Sheriff’s Office release said deputies made the arrest and did not mention state troopers.

“I am the only person that writes our press releases for Troop C. And also the only person that would provide any confirmation of an arrest. This is not our case,” NYSP spokesperson Aga Tinker told me, adding she would send a correction request. That piece was soon corrected.

Like these outlets, we could have posted what we knew about the alleged crimes online immediately. But we felt this was an important local story with open questions and went a bit further, publishing in our March 5 issue. I reached out to relevant parties: the defendant former town supervisor, the current supervisor Julia Parker, who we learned defeated Kersman in 2024, the Sheriff’s Office, and the New York State Comptroller’s Office, which collaborated on the investigation, also requesting documents from the county District Attorney’s Office. I would have combed the Decatur town meeting minutes and code, if I could find a website for them.

In so doing, we learned that the offenses are alleged to have occurred between June and November 2024; that the alleged theft was accomplished by claiming a bookkeeper line without town board authorization; that the reported cash amount was $2,900.00 in $491.00 increments; that the current supervisor has declined to offer comment; and that the accused opted to tell me an abbreviation for “Go f*** yourself,” instead of defending himself. Still managed to work some color in there, eh?

This is no groundbreaking act of investigative journalism. It is rather standard. But it does take human work time to complete, and every minute spent on it is one not spent on another story. From the vantage point of some of these outlets, why invest this effort in a story mainly impacting a community of a few hundred people an hour or more outside of your main coverage area?

To the extent they do report it, it may be because readers are much more likely to click it, post a comment and share it with a friend. As of this writing, the news outlet that got the most details wrong has 468 comments on its corresponding Facebook mugshot post—94 more comments than there are people in Decatur.

Almost all of these audiences will not be interested beyond the surface details. So, outlets are less likely to seek more than that when a reporter could be doing something with a better bang for its buck. Repackaging something from the steady stream of law enforcement press releases is easy. That certainly does not excuse those strange, sloppy (artificially intelligent hallucinations?) factual errors in the Decatur stories, though. Cheap coverage is, in fact, cheap.

These resource tradeoffs and sensationalist incentives have always existed. But they have metastasized in our modern (social and screen-based) media environment. While always a small operation, about a decade ago AllOtsego’s flagship, “The Freeman’s Journal,” employed three full-time reporters. Today, just one. In our 218th year, we are grateful to you, our readers, to be doing better than many.

Good reporting is not a momentary process. It is a constant search for new information; stories reflect a curation of what we know is happening, not all that is happening. Under increasing financial pressures and with fewer reporters, there are fewer leads. We just know less. Most of us do our best to serve the public interest despite the constraints, and I know I speak for my friends at outlets near and far when I say the stories we do not get to pursue are often the ones we lose sleep over.

This contributes to a vicious cycle of public perception. The less journalism can offer, the more its reputation is damaged. Seeing the vacuum, more people pop up claiming to tell the truth but merely repost every hot tip they receive without confirmation, all at no monetary cost to you. More people claim journalists are untrustworthy as a class, often to advance political agendas they know fewer of us will be around to fact check. So, more people cancel or do not consider a subscription. The cycle repeats: the less journalism can offer.

Perhaps, had someone had the resources to assign a reporter to some Town of Decatur meetings, we’d have heard about this well before it led to an arrest. Maybe things would even have played out differently. Maybe the regional outlets could do a Google search for some background, and write better pieces. Who can say? Nonetheless, the people still have a right to know. There are many unanswered questions about what happened at those Decatur board meetings and in the budget lines—potentially more interesting ones with the new details—hopefully to be answered as the case unfolds.

In the meantime, my plea: Buck the trends by supporting local journalism. Help us, and local reporting at-large, to be ample and thorough in our coverage by subscribing and/or donating to AllOtsego and other local news organizations.

Eric Santomauro-Stenzel is AllOtsego’s senior staff writer. Read his article, “Former Decatur Super Arrested for Alleged Theft from Town,” on AllOtsego.com or in our March 5 issue. Subscribe to AllOtsego online or by calling (607) 547-6103 and send check donations made out to Iron String Press Inc. at PO Box 890, Cooperstown, NY 13326. Donations are not tax deductible.