I hate to say it, but FB is invaluable for those of us in rural areas. There is a local paper, but it's mostly an exercise in stenography. Small county of 8,000 people. Everyone knows everyone. And the paper is probably hanging by a thread, so they don't want to piss anyone off.
So I rely more on FB. Follow all the local government agencies. Every one of them has an FB page. That gives a rough idea of what's going on. Comments on those pages are usually uncensored. Most of the comments are in agreement or cranks, but sometimes you get a nugget of truth that goes against whatever the agency said. That's been especially valuable in the pandemic. My local health agency hasn't behaved well, and the critics with inside knowledge frequently comment.
There's also local groups for my zip code that help piece together what happened. Another good, though often overlooked source, are pages from members of the opposition party. In my area, that's unsurprisingly the Democrats. They'll frequently highlight what's going wrong locally.
All of this doesn't replace the value created by a local paper that's willing to at least occasionally be critical or investigative. But it's much better than either nothing, or relying solely on the in-person gossip from neighbors. Pity it has to be on Facebook, but there isn't an alternative. Nextdoor in my area is pretty much worthless.
