Lalo Alcaraz still gets excited when he sees people reacting to one of his political cartoons.

"That never gets old," he said.

A tiny office is where he creates a loud message by using barely any words. 

“I’m just trying to get people to think critically," Alcaraz said.

The thing about political cartoons, he said, is that within seconds people should understand the point.

“I think political cartoons are really accessible, quick format that delivers the truth with a punch,” Alcaraz said.

His work is sometimes controversial. Alcaraz admits he's received hate mail throughout his career. 

“Bluntness. That's what makes my cartoons different. I have a lot of different cartoons I like to be direct," Alcaraz said.

Alcaraz is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated cartoonist whose daily comic strip "La Cucaracha" is the first nationally syndicated Latino political cartoon.

His art has made him an icon in the Mexican-American community.

In the pandemic, his work has carried a new meaning.

“It makes me feel good if someone tells me like, 'that really helped me to talk to my uncle about his dislike of vaccines,'" Alcaraz said. "That’s always a win for me."

He created special cartoons to fight pandemic misinformation as part of the "COVID Latino" project with Arizona State University.

The Latino community’s high reliance on social media for news is a reason why groups like Nielsen say they are at a higher risk for misinformation.

Avaaz, a nonprofit organization, found posts with misinformation in Spanish on Facebook are far less likely to be flagged— compared to posts in English.

“I think we’re all responsible to our communities we can’t expect people to come in and fix things for us and also on the ground level at some point," Alcaraz says.

Facebook has promised to do more to fact-check Spanish posts on its platform.

As the midterm elections near, Alcaraz hopes his messages can be educational.

"You know the information is out there; you have to look at it," he said. "'Use the coco that God gave you.'" That’s an old thing my mom used to say.”

America, we have a problem.

Newspapers, especially the smaller ones that often serve as the eyes and ears for their communities, are in danger of disappearing. That’s according to the newest State of Local News report by Northwestern University.

“We're not only in danger; we have been losing local outlets,” said Penny Muse Abernathy, a visiting professor at the Chicago-area school.

She says as those papers vanish, so too have their trained watchdogs who monitor local government.

“Not only have we lost newspapers, we have lost 60% of the newspaper journalists we had in 2005. So, 60% — that leaves 40,000 newspaper journalists that we had in 2005 that are not there now,” said Abernathy.

For communities across the United States, the problem has created news deserts.

“We have areas where people have an abundance of local news. Typically, that's around affluent areas and in metro areas. And then we have areas where people have to really, really look to find the local news and information and data that they need. And invariably those are the communities that need it the most,” said Abernathy. “They are low income, and they are traditionally underserved in marginalized communities, often with large ethnic populations that have not been served in the past well by mainstream media.”  

A map developed by Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism shows areas served by two or more papers in dark blue, one newspaper in light blue, and no newspaper in white.

“You lose a local newspaper, and you lose the person who shows up at the school board meeting, you lose the reporter who shows up at the zoning meeting or the county commissioner meeting,” said Abernathy.

Memphis, Tennessee, is 64% Black, 27% white. There, in the home of the blues, veteran journalist Wendi Thomas runs the online nonprofit news source MLK50: Justice Through Journalism.

“It can be hard to grow to the capacity you would want to be when you're relying on grants and foundations and the $10 check your mom can write every month,” said Thomas.  

Thomas started MLK50 six years ago; now she and her staff of six full-time journalists make sure the community has a voice.

“I saw a void in news coverage that wasn't being filled here in Memphis. And it was kind of one of those things where, like, 'OK, who better to do it than me?'” said Thomas.  

MLK 50 covers a range of topics. But its most important task is making sure those abandoned by profit-focused media are heard.

“We launched a newsroom focused on poverty, power and policy, which isn't something that traditional legacy newsrooms typically cover. But I knew we wanted to focus on marginalized people here in Memphis, the people who often aren't the subject of news coverage,” said Thomas.

During her 30-year-career, Thomas worked at mom-and-pop newspapers and at conglomerates.

“Rural communities have been hit hardest by the death of newspapers across the country,” said Thomas.

With advertising flowing to online and social media platforms, many small papers closed.

“That means that in a lot of these places, there is no one whose job it is to pay attention to how tax dollars are being spent, to what the county commission is doing, to what's happening at the jails. And in the absence of that sunlight from the media, all kinds of shady things happen in the dark,” said Thomas.

Online news organizations have popped up around the country that rely on private funding, such as foundation grants — outlets like the Texas Tribune and Block Club Chicago — but that model is tougher outside metro areas.

Abernathy says one solution might be using public dollars to help newspapers and local online media operate.

“Western democracies in Europe and in Asia have figured out how to do that very successfully. And in fact, if you look back, there has been a postal subsidy for most newspapers since the very beginning of this country,” said Abernathy.

This story was originally published by Tammy Estwick, Alex Livingston, Lindsay Tuchman, Tammy Estwick, Stephanie Sandoval on ScrippsNews.com.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — In the basement of retired journalist Sally Kestin’s house, lies a collection of just about every industry accolade you can think of.

It's not a museum of a past career but the hub of a new project, a fortress of solitude if you will, where she and others like her are fighting to protect democracy the best way they know how.

"Somebody called us the Gray Hair Justice League," she laughed.

The town where she's settled is no Gotham, but it happened to be the place of retirement of a handful of other well-decorated journalists.

Being natural observers, they noticed that the local news media outlets have suffered the fate of so many smaller operations across the country – budget cuts and slimmed-down newsrooms.

"They cut expenses and one of the first places they do that is the newsroom. The paper here had gone from a staff of about roughly 70 editorial employees down to about a dozen," said Kestin.

"I think they all do a wonderful job with the resources that they have, but we were all concerned. We know what happens when there is not a strong, robust local press," she continued.

According to research done by the University of North Carolina, 1,800 newspapers have shuttered since 2004, creating what has been dubbed “news deserts," or communities left without any local journalism.

Despite being bombarded with local and international news constantly on social media, the concern with news deserts is that people in these areas are being left in the dark when it comes to local issues that impact their day to day – budgets, school board decisions, politics, etc.

During the pandemic, according to Poynter, at least 100 local newspapers, some of which were more than a century old, folded, accelerating the trend.

"Having retired here, the choice was, what's more important? Playing golf and pickleball or, or actually pitching in to do something to support the local infrastructure?" said Peter Lewis, a fellow retired journalist and managing editor of The Asheville Watchdog.

Co-founded by Kestin, the Asheville Watchdog is a non-profit news website dedicated to in-depth, investigative journalism.

"I think people recognize that the kind of watchdog journalism that we do is critical to have a functioning democracy," said Lewis.

The team takes no paycheck from the work at the Watchdog, relying on donations from the community.

While they realize that not every community will have a group with the resources to start their own news organizations, they hope to inspire not only others to think about how to revive journalism in their own backyards, but to reinforce how important keeping tabs on local government and holding the powerful accountable is.

They say it's important for informing the public as well as reducing division.

"By providing that kind of coverage, we can do our little part to try and lessen this polarization that is sort of tearing communities apart, all across the country," said Lewis.

It’s not easy and they’re hoping to garner more donations to make the operation bigger, possibly hire some full-time reporters, but to them, this kind of challenge is all in a day’s work.

"We're able to do what we do best and do it in our beloved community and, and make a difference," said Kestin.