Where are the watchdogs? I have been asking myself that question for months.

It is a story every American needs to hear, yet legacy media outlets have decided you don’t need to know. In their view, the annual loss of billions in taxpayer dollars to fraudsters is a Washington “non-story”—a distraction driven merely by partisan politics.

Rule number one from my student days at the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas was simple: journalists have a constitutional responsibility to serve as watchdogs over those in power.

Yet today, broadcast networks and national newspapers are turning a blind eye to widespread entitlement and government benefit fraud totaling billions of dollars.

As someone who spent nearly 30 years as a reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor at the Chicago Tribune, I find this media silence infuriating. I learned the craft in the Windy City when it was one of the nation’s toughest newspaper towns, and reports of billions lost to fraud would have been fresh meat for any hard-nosed, scoop-hungry reporter.

Not anymore. Today, you will see nary a word about the major joint operations hunting down criminals stealing billions in taxpayer funds—an initiative accelerated since Vice President J.D. Vance was appointed to head the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.

Consider the sheer scale: roughly $245 billion in fraud uncovered, and $62 billion in suspected fraudulent payments halted.

“In just two months, we exposed billions of dollars in benefits that have been stolen from the American people,” Vance announced during a roundtable event in May. “We referred over $22 billion in fraudulent small business loans back to the Treasury for collection. We deferred more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements…”

Vance added that the Task Force also recovered funds from a $135 billion COVID-19 fraud scheme and halted over $6 billion in fraudulent government contracts, emphasizing that fraud harms both the taxpayer and the vulnerable citizens who rely on these services.

An old journalistic adage reminds us that our job is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Today, it seems too many newsrooms have reversed the formula: comforting the fraudsters while afflicting the taxpayers.

I attribute this journalistic flouting to partisan framing and narrative fit. Major systemic fraud often exposes glaring vulnerabilities in state-level administrations (such as California or Minnesota) or highlights regulatory lapses during past presidential terms. Mainstream editorial boards refuse to cover stories that appear to validate conservative talking points or lend political momentum to aggressive federal crackdowns of programs Democrats use to gain voter support.

There is also the issue of routine vs. event-driven news. Fraud investigations often involve incremental regulatory steps, auditing reports, and court filings. Legacy outlets tend to prioritize high-drama political standoffs over paper-trail investigations, treating administrative oversight as dense or monotonous unless it ties to a major breaking event.

I guess the theft of a quarter-trillion dollars (so far) isn’t important enough to inspire our insipid media. Unpacking fraudulent networks in specialized industries like hospice care, adult day care, or autism clinics requires breaking down intricate billing mechanisms (e.g., Medicaid/Medicare CPT codes or state waiver systems). These investigations demand specialized investigative reporting teams that many legacy newsrooms have downsized—a sorry fact about today’s news media.

Perhaps the most troubling is the media’s fear of stigmatizing federal and state benefit programs. Mainstream news organizations often approach safety-net oversight with caution, worried that highlighting widespread criminal abuse might lead to public cynicism, backlash against entitlement programs, or funding cuts for legitimate beneficiaries.

Uh. Yes. Isn’t that what should happen when agencies are being ripped off by fraudsters? Why do Democrats insist on pouring good money after bad into fraud-ridden programs?

Oh, that’s right. It’s about votes. Democrats learned many decades ago that if you spread enough money around—fraudulent or not—those dollars will translate into grateful votes. You can bet your booty that every one of those fraudsters voted only for those with a “D” after their name. They know where their fancy French baguettes are buttered.

According to a recent “American Journalist Study” conducted by Syracuse and Indiana Universities, only 3.4 percent of American journalists are Republicans or conservative, and 88 percent are Democrats or profess to be Independents.

In 1971, a couple of years after I joined the Chicago Tribune, 25.7% of U.S. journalists identified as Republican; by 2002, that number dropped to 18%, fell to 7.1% in 2013, and reached a record low of 3.4% in 2022.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Media Research Center and the Harvard Kennedy School both find that most media coverage of Donald Trump and his administration is negative, and why, then, there is essentially a news blackout on government fraud?

The Media Research Center’s long-term content analyses show that broadcast coverage of Trump regularly ranges from 85% to 92% negative. During key political cycles and administrative periods, the MRC recorded negative statements outnumbering positive ones by roughly nine to one.

In a seminal study examining Trump’s first 100 days in office, Harvard researchers found that news coverage across major domestic and international outlets (including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, and CBS) was 80% negative. By comparison, coverage during the same timeframe was 42% negative for Barack Obama, 49% negative for George W. Bush, and 60% negative for Bill Clinton.

Scholars from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center noted that “modern” journalism, as opposed to “ancient” journalism that I practiced, inherently focuses on controversy, policy disputes, and institutional friction. Because Donald Trump frequently challenges established norms, executive agencies, and press reporting directly, media outlets responded with more adversarial stories than is usual for a presidential administration.

Their research indicates that today’s mainstream reporting relies heavily on critical sources, including opposition lawmakers, former officials, and policy critics, while featuring fewer official administration defenses than previous White Houses.

Conservative media outlets (such as Fox News or Newsmax) generate significantly higher proportions of positive reporting on Trump’s policies, whereas broadcast networks and mainstream print outlets have maintained a predominantly critical posture throughout his current tenure.

 

I hope these explanations provide some context for why our media are ignoring what I consider America’s biggest and most consequential story—the current Iran engagement notwithstanding.

To that end, here are a few more mostly unreported facts about what Vice President Vance and his task force are accomplishing:

• 8,000+ Active Investigations: The Department of Justice is actively supervising over 8,000 ongoing fraud cases nationwide, targeting schemes involving more than $1 trillion in federal program spending. That is one trillion dollars with a “T”—likely the largest single accumulation of government fraud in American history.
• Hundreds Indicted: The DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division has brought criminal charges against hundreds of defendants, including targeted task force operations that hit over 100 individuals involved in pandemic-era loan schemes.
• 150+ Guilty Pleas & Convictions: In just months, task force prosecutors have secured over 150 convictions, resulting in thousands of aggregate months of federal prison time.
• 870,000 Cut Off: The administration has suspended or permanently barred over 870,000 individuals and entities tied to suspected fraudulent activity from receiving federal loans and benefits.

Not a bad couple of months’ work.

Yet you would never know it by turning on cable news, picking up a major national daily, or scanning wire services like the Associated Press. The Vance Task Force operates in a virtual media vacuum, punctuated only by the occasional story whenever the vice president holds a mandatory press conference.

So, I ask again: Why the Media’s Deafening Silence on Government Fraud?

If you have a better answer than mine, drop me a line.

–30–

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