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Somali Fraud: A Fatal Blow to the MSM?

Old Bathos
@OldBathos
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If you get all your news from the Washington Post or New York Times, the Somali fraud scandals (a) were mentioned in passing months ago, so the story has been adequately covered; (b) a more important story is that the president has exaggerated the amount stolen; and (c) the non-MSM journalists reporting the fraud got facts wrong.

The MSM has survived multiple monolithic errors, from the Dan Rather scandal over twenty years ago to the more recent Russiagate and horrendous COVID misreporting. Reporting what the left wants to hear and, more importantly, censoring inconvenient truths while still claiming the mantle of professionalism is increasingly pathetic. As trust, readership and viewership decline and the product becomes more sophomorically partisan, is there a breaking point? A merciful end to the caricature of once great institutions?

The US Attorney in Minneapolis has stated that he does not have the manpower to investigate the full range of known offenses in Minnesota alone, even as he prosecutes over a hundred alleged fraudsters. You would think that uncovering large dollar frauds would be the stuff of dreams for any reporter and that every editor would want to be ahead of that story.

Corrupt defense contractors and bribed politicians do not take money specifically directed at services for the health and welfare of low-income Americans. Aid for food, housing and COVID support ought to be regarded as sacrosanct by public-spirited journalists. Or so you might expect.

If the motive for ignoring the story is the fear of fostering an adverse perception of a minority group, a better solution than censorship would be aggressive investigative reporting of the large (non-Somali) avalanche of fraud in the COVID-era flood of spending under both Trump and Biden to provide context and clearly reveal the scope of government incompetence.

But the MSM lacks the means and the will to do the job the country needs done. Is a steady loss of trust, integrity, readership and revenues merely leading to a final sniveling partisan whine about how non-professionals should not be allowed access to any outlets?

There are important events, developments, trends and changes that do not involve Donald Trump. It is not an unjust imposition to expect those calling themselves newsmen to devote proportional attention. For supposed news organizations to minimize or actually defend the biggest collective financial scandal since the 2008 crash because it is ideologically inconvenient is suicidal. The brazen Somali thefts may bring down a wider range of individuals and institutions than Gov. Walz and Keith “X” Ellison. Much needs to change.

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Discussion (72)

  • EJHill@EJHill

    The problem is that the MSM hasn’t been ignoring the story. But if you ignore the MSM then you will believe it when others tell you the story has been ignored.

    And if you’ve been ignoring the mainstream media and celebrating falling ratings, falling subscriptions and layoffs, well, congratulations, you’ve helped make sure that these kind of things happen. “Gee, I shot the watch dog in the head and now I don’t understand why he didn’t bark at the thief” is quite the take.

  • Percival@Percival
    ReplyingtoEJHill

    EJHill (View Comment):

    The problem is that the MSM hasn’t been ignoring the story. But if you ignore the MSM then you will believe it when others tell you the story has been ignored.

    And if you’ve been ignoring the mainstream media and celebrating falling ratings, falling subscriptions and layoffs, well, congratulations, you’ve helped make sure that these kind of things happen. “Gee, I shot the watch dog in the head and now I don’t understand why he didn’t bark at the thief” is quite the take.

    A total of 12 minutes across the three networks for 'Minnesota fraud.' They spent more on Sydney Sweeney's good jeans. Which were good, I'll admit, but probably not worth that level of scrutiny.

    (Sorry, Ms. Sweeney.)

    Things the watchdog has been rather insistent on courtesy of M.D. Kittle at the Federalist.

    Elon the ‘Fascist’ Anti-Hegseth Campaign Wait … Joe Biden Wasn’t OK After All? A ‘Maryland Man’ Whitewashing the Russiagate Scandal Sydney Sweeney’s Good Jeans Smearing Charlie Kirk Excusing Leftist Violence Democrat Lawfare? Never Heard of It War on SCOTUS

  • Gary McVey@GaryMcVey

    The New York Times has been all over the story for months. I feel the same way about their overall coverage of politics that that I do about nearly ever other issue in their newspaper, but it's just flat out not true that "the MSM is ignoring this story". Why not stick to, "they clearly don't like the story and wish it would go away?" Perfectly accurate.

  • Michael Minnott@MichaelMinnott
    ReplyingtoEJHill

    EJHill (View Comment):

    The problem is that the MSM hasn’t been ignoring the story. But if you ignore the MSM then you will believe it when others tell you the story has been ignored.

    And if you’ve been ignoring the mainstream media and celebrating falling ratings, falling subscriptions and layoffs, well, congratulations, you’ve helped make sure that these kind of things happen. “Gee, I shot the watch dog in the head and now I don’t understand why he didn’t bark at the thief” is quite the take.

    Thank you, David French, for your input.

    I think Joe Teirab (@JoeTeirab) over at X responded succinctly:

    "I’m an AO OG, but if @DavidAFrench is referencing MAGA’s critique of the MSM’s coverage of the recent rampant fraud in MN and elsewhere, respectfully, he’s just wrong.

    I’m a regular reader of both the @nytimes and @StarTribune, and helped prosecute fraud in MN as an AUSA.

    No fair observer could say the scope of the coverage was commensurate with the scope of the fraud. You just can’t."

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