EXCLUSIVE: The growing hospice fraud scandal in California could soon derail the presidential ambitions of Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris, or at least it looks like that’s what Apple, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo fear. The Big Four might also be protecting the Democrat candidates aiming to replace Newsom as governor in 2026.
The hospice fraud, potentially the largest in recent history, intensified in 2021 and reportedly cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, exposing the Newsom administration’s apparent failure to act or worse.
The years-long fraud also raises questions about the inaction of other Democrats, including potential 2028 contenders like former Vice President Kamala Harris, who served as California’s top law enforcement official for seven years, and then as the nation’s second-highest office holder while the fraud spiked to record heights.
But Newsom and Harris can breathe easy for now, as Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN and Yahoo News kept damning hospice fraud stories out of their top 20 placements for nearly a month, a Media Research Center report found.
Key Findings:
- The Big Four News Apps published zero hospice fraud stories from Feb. 25 through March 25 — that is a 29-day media blackout for the fraud scandal.
- The month-long blackout is difficult to explain on journalistic grounds, as outlets across the ideological spectrum covered developments tied to the fraud and the federal investigation.
- CBS News and independent journalist Nick Shirley led coverage of the scandal. CBS News called Los Angeles County “ground zero” for hospice fraud, yet Apple, Google, Microsoft’s MSN, and Yahoo still skipped the stories in their top slots.
- The Big Four News Apps published 68 other CBS News stories during the same period, making it one of the most widely featured outlets—an indication that the exclusion of its hospice fraud coverage was likely deliberate.
- Instead, these digital news gatekeepers prioritized trivial or partisan-friendly content from CBS News, leaving millions of Americans uninformed about the massive fraud unchecked by state officials.
How the Big Four News Apps Shield California Democrats While Fraud Mounts
The Big Four News Apps — through human and algorithmic curation — control which news reaches hundreds of millions of Americans, often without their knowledge. For the Newsom-linked hospice scandal, Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN and Yahoo News all chose to blackout coverage.
The Newsom scandal centers on allegations that he ignored, or may have covered up, widespread hospice fraud in California. Reports suggest fraudsters overbilled Medicare and, in some cases, enrolled beneficiaries without their knowledge. State regulators were aware of the warnings for years but may have failed to take decisive action.
Federal scrutiny on the hospice fraud comes as several Democrats seek the California governorship in 2026, including Xavier Becerra, who led the Biden-era Health Department and served as California attorney general, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, a longtime Democratic lawmaker. Meanwhile, both Newsom and Harris are unofficially jockeying for position in early 2028 Democratic primary polls
Trump officials have warned that health care fraud in California could be far worse than anything seen in other states, with other investigators saying the fraudulent activity has persisted for years, affecting Medicare and Medicaid programs statewide.
MRC reviewed the top 20 stories promoted by Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN and Yahoo News from Feb. 25 to March 25, following the Trump administration’s announcement of a reinforced federal initiative to combat health care fraud. Tellingly, these digital gatekeepers kept coverage of the California fraud out of its top placements during the reviewed period.
Across those 29 days, the Big Four News Apps had 2,320 available placements where they could have included coverage of the California fraud, particularly as stories about the scandal gained national attention.
The closest these tech giants came to covering the fraud was two stories focused on the federal crackdown in Minnesota that referenced California could become the next target for investigators. But even those reports — one from NPR and another from USA Today — did not address the California fraud directly and instead framed the anti-fraud efforts negatively.
“The threats to Minnesota’s Medicaid funds are unprecedented. Other states could be next,” read NPR’s headline, immediately casting the anti-fraud effort as dangerous.
Rather than examine the exploitation of taxpayer funds, NPR pivoted to worst-case scenarios, emphasizing speculative harm over documented misconduct. USA Today followed suit, reporting that responsibility for addressing fraud falls on the federal government, not the states — an obvious attempt to let Newsom off the hook for failure to properly monitor the state’s programs.
Big Four News Apps Promote CBS, Just Not the Fraud Stories
One outlet that broke from NPR and USA Today and did not downplay the hospice fraud scandal was CBS News, which published several bombshell reports highlighting how Los Angeles became “ground zero” for the scheme.
Independent journalist Nick Shirley also conducted groundbreaking investigative work, releasing a 40-minute video highlighting the massive surge in hospice enrollment, the alleged hospice workers owning luxury vehicles and empty offices, clear signs of fraud.
Shockingly, the Big Four News Apps ensured none of those CBS News or Shirley stories, nor any of the numerous follow-on stories from other news outlets, appeared in their top 20 placements despite the fraud hitting the political backyard long tied to these tech giants.
However, the selective erasure was limited to the hospice fraud stories, as CBS News remained comfortably among the most-promoted outlets across the digital news gatekeepers.
An MRC review of the Big Four News Apps’ treatment of CBS News articles from Feb. 25 through March 25 found that the platforms collectively promoted 68 stories, broken down as follows:
- Apple News: 20 articles
- Google News: 23 articles
- MSN: 13 articles
- Yahoo News: 12 articles
To put that into perspective, National Review, Newsmax, Daily Caller, The Washington Free Beacon and even Weiss’s The Free Press had zero placements in this timeframe. The New York Post had just two placements, from Google News.
Of the 68 CBS News stories published by the Big Four News Apps, some were trivial, even silly, posing no threat to Newsom or other Democrats implicated in the fraud scandal.
Among them was a CBS News piece on Apple News about businesses struggling to set prices on goods due to the shortage of pennies.
On Google News, readers saw a CBS News story about “moderate” snowfall in Massachusetts.
MSN twice published a CBS News video featuring the executive caught on a viral Coldplay kiss cam with her boss. MSN first published that video on March 24 and again on March 25.
On Yahoo News, readers were fed a CBS News story about a meteor causing a loud boom across Ohio’s skies, and another about former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema admitting to a romance with her former security guard.
Yet while readers were fed a steady stream of soft or irrelevant content, a far more consequential story was nowhere to be found.
What Americans Reading the Big Four News Apps Missed
On March 10, CBS News released a bombshell story detailing how hospice fraud had run rampant in Los Angeles, potentially resulting in millions of taxpayer dollars being exploited by criminal actors.
With the headline, “We visited ‘ground zero’ for hospice fraud: Los Angeles, California,” the CBS story was atypical of the coverage the news outlet produces and hinted at what could become one of the largest Medicare hospice fraud scandals in years.
The bombshell story noted that the fraud has been “acute” in California, as 742 of the 1,800 hospice centers in Los Angeles County trigger major red flags for fraud. For example, 500 of those hospice centers operate within a three-mile radius, including 137 along Van Nuys Boulevard alone, while 89 are registered to a single building.
Some of those hospice centers did not have working phone numbers, while 40 of them reportedly share key personnel. CBS News reported that the number of hospices in the Los Angeles area has increased by a whopping 1,500% since 2010. This is “more than six times the national average relative to its elderly population,” the outlet added.
CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss described the investigation as “incredible,” garnering more than 40 million views on X and thousands of reactions from Republicans and other officials. In contrast, Newsom largely downplayed the accusations, repeatedly citing a 2021 hospice “moratorium” that resulted in some license revocations and other investigations.
But the purported moratorium does not explain why hospice fraud remained rampant in the state or why other authorities failed to take decisive action. Reacting to the staggering concentration of potentially fraudulent operations in California, Dr. Mehmet Oz asked, “Los Angeles has ONE THIRD of all hospice centers in the ENTIRE COUNTRY. Is everyone dying in LA?”
CBS News intensified its coverage of the hospice fraud in follow-up stories — none of which appeared in the Big Four News Apps’ top 20 placements during the reviewed period.
The omission tactic employed by the Big Four News Apps is a common practice identified by the MRC in previous studies. For example, if an event is damaging to the political left, it is unlikely to appear in the top 20 listings of these news aggregators.
In November, MRC discovered that these news sites suppressed scandals involving Democrats running in the 2025 elections, all of whom ultimately won their races. Politicians who benefited from this tactic include former Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who is now New Jersey’s governor; former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, now Virginia’s governor; Zohran Mamdani, the current New York City mayor; and Jay Jones, the current Virginia attorney general.
A separate study from December found that scandals involving Del. Stacey Plaskett, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and indicted Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick were also overlooked by these Big Tech aggregators.
The anti-ICE riot inside Cities Church in Minneapolis — which led to federal grand jury indictments for several individuals — was also largely overlooked by the Big Four News Apps, along with the criminal indictment of former CNN anchor-turned-YouTuber Don Lemon.
Methodology: From Feb. 25 through March 25, the Media Research Center examined the top 20 stories featured each day on the Big Four News Apps — Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN, and Yahoo News — at approximately 8:30 a.m. ET. MRC specifically searched for the terms “medi,” “Medicare,” “Medicaid,” “MediCal,” “fraud,” “Oz,” and “Newsom” to identify potential stories relevant to this special report.
