Well, he's a representative for New York, in a district for ~~New York City itself.~~ Long Island and "technically" a tiny bit of NYC. (I have been informed that his district is mostly Long Island)

Let's break this down into two parts, okay?

1. Local journalism is dead, dead, dead, dead dead. Especially in big places like New York City, where everyone assumes that the New York Times will be covering things. They didn't dig deep into Mayor Adams either, and that guy is under investigation now as well. They didn't question his former police credentials after decades of police misconduct. Beyond that the NYT is more of a national newspaper than an actual local paper. I'm sure there are plenty of small independent news sources in New York City, but I'm also sure they're mostly drowned out and ignored compared to how many people read something like the NYT.

2. Corruption in New York City is literally, completely nothing new. Journalists have been failing to uncover unscrupulous activity for decades in this city. As I referenced mayor Adams above, this city filled with the rich, egotistical, and greedy, is a city built on the kind of lies George Santos peddles. How do I know? Because that city allowed Donald Trump to be a successful real estate developer using similar tactics. People have known he's corrupt since forever, but plenty of his corruption was just ignored until decades later. Same with Rudy Guiliani and so on.

Now I'm not saying we should just give up. Local journalism is important to fight for, and NYC being a corrupt hell-hole isn't a permanent foregone conclusion. However, my point is that NYT employs far fewer reporters than you think to cover an entire country, and the dearth of real local news sources all over the country is contributing to these kind of people succeeding, because the local press is dead in the water and can't afford to send someone researching local corruption.

Pay for your local news, is what I am saying, I guess, and things might marginally improve.

I remember seeing articles about this stuff during his election. Republicans elected him anyway. That's where we are now

Why are you blaming journalists and not the GOP for not vetting their own fucking candidate.

The North Shore Leader, a small paper on Long Island, broke the scandal before the November election. By the time other outlets picked it up, Santos had been elected. Grant Lally joined Geoff Bennett to discuss.

PBS News Hour - Small, local paper uncovered and reported George Santos scandal before November election, January 9, 2023

Local media does need support.

where tf were the journalists while Santos was running his campaign on these false claims?

There aren't enough journalists to go around. There are hundreds of congresspeople and there definitely aren't hundreds of journalists covering random unimportant congresspeople.

People have voted with their dollars, saying they don't care enough about vetting congresspeople before they're elected to actually pay the salaries of journalists to do that.

For now.