Sunday, October 13, 2013

MJS Almost Catches Up To Cog Dis On Nepotism Story

There is yet another story in which the largest newspaper in the state is busy playing catch up.

In June 2013, Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express broke the story about the rampant nepotism and cronyism that has invested the state's Income Maintenance Program in Milwaukee County.

Last month, I did a follow up on this story, pointing out how the nepotism and cronyism was playing a large part of the problem the system was having with fraud:
And just like he did as county executive, Walker is setting up the program for failure. While the county had a unit of people working on investigating fraud, Walker had just one person for the entire county for a long time. When the stories started to break about the fraud that was being allowed, Walker hired a few more workers to do these investigations. Sadly, the people that were hired were hired based on rather than their qualifications. (On top of that, these new hires were paid more than the one existing fraud investigator who has apparently left the job for someplace that will respect him.)
Lo and behold, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is just starting to catch up on this, sort of:
Leadership within MiLES — specifically the alleged favoritism — definitely interferes with the department's work, employees told the Journal Sentinel. Especially when it comes to weeding out fraud.

A Journal Sentinel investigation published last month exposed how federal incentives to boost enrollment in food and medical assistance programs have led to pressure on front-line workers to issue benefits even when they suspect people might not be eligible.

Robertson and Kamin are ultimately responsible for hitting target numbers. As a result, workers say, they are instructed by supervisors to process benefits for people already receiving aid in other states, people in jail — essentially anybody with an ID card.

Workers outside the favored circle who object or question the tactics are considered troublemakers and quickly lose any shot at ever advancing, they said.

"That's the disease of nepotism," said one worker who was hired around the same time as Robertson's son. "It falls into so many categories. And it spreads like cancer."
At least the article gave credit to the Shepherd Express for their part in breaking the story. That is usually something they only do for propagandist organizations like MacIver, Wisconsin Reporter and Media Trackers.

But again, they are a month late - at best - and a dollar short.  Notice how they failed to even mention that the nepotism and cronyism was made possible by Act 10?    They're still unable to hold Scott Walker accountable for anything.

But that's what you get from the corporate media.

2 comments:

  1. You are not any more truthful than the other side you deride.

    So do you regularly call all of those sex numbers in the ads that support your favorite "journalist"?

    Perhaps you are a big strip-club fan...

    Or maybe you like all the crappy bands that sheppard express pumps up with propaganda.

    It is unfortunate that we have little legitimate media in wisconsin -- flip throught shepard express -- not really a credible source for anything but exploitation of women and booze.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Can't answer the charges, can you troll boy?

    Maybe the fact that the Shepherd doesn't have to kiss up to corporate Milwaukee (like the J-S does) means that it has a better chance of giving you the honest story. Actually, there's not much "maybe" about it.

    ReplyDelete