Google News is accused of a White House fraud task force blackout

An analysis of months of stories found that none of the task force’s 51 key anti-fraud actions were among the top 20 listings promoted each morning.

Those include the largest healthcare takedown in history, suspension of billions of dollars in Medicaid and healthcare funding, and the removal of more than 1000 California hospices from Medicare, according to a new report from the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog.

It claimed the blackout was intentional, the latest example of conservative news being downgraded on Google platforms.

MRC president David Bozell accused Google of giving Americans an incomplete picture of the Trump administration’s anti-fraud efforts just ahead of critical midterm elections.

“Between February and August, major news outlets published more than 257 stories on these multi-billion-dollar crackdowns,” he told Secrets. “Yet not one appeared in Google News’ top morning feed. That’s 257 stories available to Google and 248 stories its users never saw there.”

“A 257-to-0 blackout isn’t a minor editorial quirk,” Bozell added. “Google owes its users an explanation for how a news platform with this much power managed to miss every single one.”

Google has always denied altering its output based on political viewpoints. Instead, it says its algorithms prioritize authority, trust, and relevance rather than filtering for political ideology.

To test the way Google News treats fraud task force stories, MRC reviewed the top 20 stories promoted in its morning feed from Feb. 25 to Aug. 31.

During that time, the White House identified 51 key wins for its new fraud unit. Those included the Department of Justice‘s June announcement of charges against 455 defendants in connection with more than $6.5 billion in alleged fraud across 45 states and territories.

Far from being covered by just right-wing media, it generated headlines in the New York Times and CNN, among others. Yet MRC still found the story was not promoted to Google News readers.

It is one of dozens of examples, such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services disqualifying nearly 60% of Minnesota’s Medicaid providers for failing to comply with anti-fraud standards, that were ignored.

According to the analysis, the 51 actions were covered in 257 stories in all, with 70 in left-leaning outlets, 46 in Google News’ top 10 most-cited sources, and 55 in right-leaning outlets.

Al Jazeera, BBC, CBS News, CNN, NBC News, NPR, the Associated Press, the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Washington Post were all among those that covered the anti-fraud initiatives.

The analysis concludes that their involvement eliminates the argument that Google News failed to promote them because they weren’t being reported widely.

Google declined to comment on the specific findings of the survey.

However, checking Google News just once each morning from a single account would not reflect how the site is updated throughout the day and personalized for individual interests and location, according to Google.

Plus, the volume of news is not necessarily a reflection of bias. Instead, the presence of a major outlet in Google News is usually a reflection of that outlet’s high output on trending topics. Its new “preferred sources” allows users to pick out the news sites they want to see more from.

But it is not the first time online algorithms, or the people who build them, have been accused of bias.

MRC researchers earlier this year asked Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Grok for the top 10 news stories from May 24 through May 28. Again, there was no mention of Vance’s announcement during that period that more than $135 billion in federal fraud had been identified for recovery.

For MRC, the result is a shift in the playing field ahead of the midterms, as voters miss out on key administration wins.

“Put into practice, the blackout means that millions of active Google News users are effectively kept in the dark about the White House’s actions against fraud,” it concludes.

Necktie diplomacy

Donald Trump made a rare Tarmac appearance last night to greet Xi Jinping as his Chinese counterpart arrived for their summit. Trump wore a striped purple tie for the occasion.

Eagle-eyed observers noted it was the same tie he wore when he left China after their most recent meeting.

And of course, there is a good reason. Trump knows how to use his appearance to make a point, and he must have known that greeting a communist leader with his signature red tie — the color of Republicans in the United States, but the color of the Chinese flag as well as the color of socialists everywhere else — might not be quite the effect he wanted.

That still leaves the bigger dilemma, however. When he and his party are describing leftist Democrats as communists ahead of the midterm elections, just how helpful is it to be hosting an actual communist for a lavish state banquet at the White House?

Quote of the day

It’s all about China today. And whether both sides can simply keep a lid on tensions and offer the world a degree of stability and predictability. That is what Trump needs. And it is what Xi needs, but the Chinese leader has the advantage of knowing that time is on his side, and he cannot be derailed by such trifling things as elections.

So the best line to trot out at the water cooler today when the subject comes up is this one from Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who is quoted in a rather devastating analysis piece here.

“Both sides are trying to keep things calm. It’s in both sides’ interests, but I think mostly to the benefit of China. I think now this is Xi Jinping’s world and we’re all living in it.”

Lunchtime reading

Medal of Honor heroes take sides as Trump’s Army secretary decision becomes Pentagon ‘knife fight’: Five of the United States’ living Medal of Honor recipients made their case to the New York Post. Three urged Trump to pick dark horse Marc Andersen, the Army’s comptroller and assistant secretary for financial management, while two others endorsed Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.

MAGA podcasters are tuning out Trump: Left-wing podcasts are still talking about the president. A lot. But those on the Right have a new favorite subject: James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Texas.