When Government Officials Attack the Press: A Case Study in Accountability Journalism
How The Center Square's reporting on California fire recovery funds sparked a revealing government response
When government officials demand corrections to factual reporting, it reveals something important about how they view the press—and how they hope you'll view their policies.
The week of July 7th provided another example when California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office took to social media to attack The Center Square's reporting on $101 million in post-wildfire housing funds. Their response, claiming our article was “riddled with factual inaccuracies,” deserves careful examination — not because they’re right (spoiler alert: they are not right), but because of what their pushback reveals about government messaging versus reality.
The Original Reporting
The news stops for nothing and nobody. That includes natural disasters. While others in news media have run off to the latest tragedy, we continue to report on the massive efforts to rebuild western North Carolina. Long after the last camera crew rolls out of Hill Country, we will continue to focus on the horrific flash-flooding in Texas. And The Center Square hasn’t lost sight of what’s happening in the aftermath of the wildfires that tore through Southern California in January.
In mid-June, a colleague and I toured Pacific Palisades, a stunningly beautiful community that was burned nearly in its entirety by fire fueled by high winds. The aftermath is stark: rusted, twisted steel framework and beams throughout the town. Just last month, the Pacific Palisades was still very much in the clean-up phase, with the downtown area cordoned off or fenced off on virtually every block. Streets were still closed. Massive construction vehicles, cranes and dump trucks were present everywhere.
Staying with this important story, reporter Kenneth Schrupp covered Newsom’s July 8 announcement of $101 million in funding for “multifamily low-income housing development” in fire-affected areas from Pacific Palisades to Altadena, in Los Angeles County. That story included direct quotes from Newsome and California Department of Housing and Community Development officials, who explicitly stated the funding would “contribute to a more equitable and resilient Los Angeles” with priority for “geographic proximity to the fire perimeters.”
The Center Square also reported on existing California state law and Los Angeles ordinances regarding rent-protected housing replacement requirements—context that apparently struck a nerve. And while $101 million may sound like a lot of money to you, against California building codes and regulations, that amount of money is a drip toward any solution addressing property and economic losses between $250-275 billion, according to recent Los Angeles Times reporting.
The Governor’s Response
The Governor’s Press Office claimed our headline — “Newsom unveils $101M to build Palisades low-income housing” — was “flatly wrong” because the funding isn’t limited to Palisades.
Let’s examine this:
The Governor’s own statement mentioned “Pacific Palisades to Altadena to Malibu.”
The funding notice specifically prioritizes proximity to the “Palisades fires.”
When government funding explicitly prioritizes an area and officials repeatedly reference it, reporting that connection isn’t misleading—it’s journalism.
More revealing was their claim that The Center Square falsely reported on state law requirements for replacing rent-controlled housing. They insisted “State law does not require rent-controlled units destroyed in the LA fires to be replaced with low-income units.”
The Real Story
Here’s what’s actually happening: The Governor’s office is playing word games. While they claim executive orders allow rebuilding at market rate “subject to local rent control laws,” they conveniently ignore that those very local laws—which remain in effect—contain the replacement requirements reported.
The state funding notice itself reveals the truth. It explicitly includes:
Requirements that 40% of units in Supportive Housing projects go to formerly homeless individuals or those exiting institutions
Scoring preferences for projects closest to fire zones
Density bonuses of 50-80% for transit-oriented developments with income restrictions
Multiple funding streams that can be “stacked” to increase low-income unit requirements
This isn’t about helping everyone rebuild. It’s about using disaster recovery funds to reshape communities according to specific policy goals.
Never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste, some in government may say.
Why This Matters
When government officials attack factual reporting with semantics and misdirection, they’re betting you won’t read the fine print –– that you are just skimming headlines, or gleaning information on the fly. Important to remember when you see this kind of pushback: Government plays politics with everyone, whenever it needs to.
They are not held to any standards for accuracy or fairness –– until they go to the polls.
Moreover, the government is counting on press releases being reprinted as news and social media outrage drowning out substantive reporting.
While The Center Square news team receives and reads thousands of press releases from across the country each week, our editorial standards forbid the regurgitation of information provided by government, organizational, or corporate entities as fact.
In short, we don’t rewrite press releases and then call it good. That gets you fired here.
Still, we have a policy to review any public concern with the work we publish and Dan McCaleb, Chief Content Officer, personally reviewed Governor Gavin Newsom’s complaints –– point by point. No corrections were issued because none were warranted. We did clarify two minor points to make the story clearer to our readers, but every claim in our story was backed by government documents and direct quotes from officials.
This isn’t about politics—it’s about transparency. Whether you support affordable housing mandates or oppose them, you deserve to know what your government is actually doing, not what they want you to think they’re doing.
The Accountability Gap
This exchange illuminates why independent statehouse reporting matters more than ever. When facts were published that complicated the Governor’s preferred narrative, the response wasn’t to dispute the evidence—it was to attack our credibility and demand we parrot their talking points.
Our reporters don’t write stories to please or antagonize politicians. We report what government does, using their own documents and statements. If that makes officials uncomfortable, perhaps they should examine their policies, not attack the press.
After reviewing all claims made by the Governor’s office, The Center Square stands behind its reporting. The facts speak for themselves—even when government officials wish they didn’t.
This is what accountability journalism looks like: Following the money, reading the fine print, and refusing to back down when powerful interests demand you look the other way. Judge for yourself at TheCenterSquare.com.