How do local governments respond to economic crises? And how does local media structure these responses? After economic crises, local governments have to balance constituents' preferences for fiscal consolidation against incentives created by tax competition in decentralized countries. Underpinning this process is an institution that is viewed as essential for democracy: the local press. While the media can induce accountability, it can also expose constituents to reporting on the negative repercussions of a crisis, shifting preferences for policy responses. To make sense of these expectations, I compile a fourteen-year panel of 2,193 German municipalities, focusing on the critical areas of business and property taxation. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that, against expectations of debt aversion, greater exposure to the crisis has a negative effect on local business tax rates. In the next step, I demonstrate that relative business tax cuts are largest in areas with a greater local media presence. I propose that a greater local media presence exposes constituents to more reporting on the negative repercussions of the crisis, increasing popular demands for responses that benefit the struggling local economy. I then present additional survey evidence to show that attitudinal changes are consistent with this mechanism. In contrast to prior work on left-ward preference shifts after economic crises, my findings highlight that constituents' perceptions of economic risk lead local governments to cut taxes for businesses.