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Miami, Florida - At some point, journalistic coverage stops asking questions and starts choosing sides.
Jim DeFede is an investigative reporter for CBS News in Miami. His continuous reporting on Miami’s long-delayed mental health facility presents itself as accountability journalism. His reporting highlights dysfunction, amplifies urgency, and directs criticism toward political figures, most notably Republican Anthony Rodriguez, Chairman of the Miami-Dade County Commission.
The storyline is clean. Chairman Rodriguez is the obstacle. The implication is simple: political interference is why a so-called “much-needed” facility remains stalled. It is framed as a broken promise to taxpayers, often tied back to a 2004 referendum that voters supported with the expectation of improving and upgrading public health infrastructure, including institutions like Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Nevertheless, Mr. DeFede’s reporting is convenient, focused and incomplete. What is missing from his reporting is the framing of questions that actually matter. What exactly is this facility supposed to do today? Who will it serve? What measurable outcomes justify its cost? How does it benefit Miami-Dade County taxpayers in specific, transparent and measurable terms?
Conditions that once drew national attention, including the “Forgotten Floor,” have since been addressed, and major institutional changes have occurred, including the removal of federal oversight. That evolution raises a reasonable question: what problem is this facility solving now, and how is success being defined?
Chairman Rodriguez asking those questions is not obstruction. It is his job. Scrutiny of public spending is governance. Treating such scrutiny as sabotage says more about the narrative than the policymaker. Mr. DeFede’s reporting, however, avoids examining the broader structure surrounding the “Miami Model.”
Public records show that The Leifman Group, LLC, a private Florida limited liability company tied to retired Judge Steve Leifman, was formally established in 2024. At the same time, jurisdictions outside Florida, including Salt Lake County, Utah, are publicly engaging The Leifman Group to help shape their own mental health systems. The Miami model is presented as scalable and cost-effective. That overlap raises straightforward accountability questions.
What is the relationship between a publicly-developed model and a privately- held LLC? Who is funding these engagements across jurisdictions? What compensation structures exist? And critically, what do Miami-Dade County taxpayers receive in return when the model they funded is expanded elsewhere?
These are not fringe concerns. They are baseline oversight. Yet they remain largely absent from the Mr. DeFede’s coverage.
Costs associated with maintaining unused or delayed facilities are often highlighted, but there is far less clarity regarding the full financial picture, including capital expenditures, renovation decisions, and how contracts were awarded and evaluated for value and efficiency. Those gaps in transparency deserve examination.
That absence of detail becomes harder to ignore when viewed alongside Mr. DeFede’s own record. In 2005, he was fired by The Miami Herald after secretly recording Miami Commissioner Arthur Teele without consent in a two-party consent state. The call occurred shortly before Teele died by suicide inside the Herald building, intensifying scrutiny of the decision and its ethical implications. That firing remains a documented breach of journalistic ethics.
Years later, Mr. DeFede was also named in a lawsuit filed by veteran investigative reporter Michele Gillen, alleging bullying, misogyny and retaliation inside CBS Miami. CBS denied the allegations, and the case was settled without public findings.
According to the complaint, the alleged environment included remarks such as: “Attract women who are menstruating and watching Blue Bloods.” As well as: “Do we want to set up a meeting… or is she on the rag?”
Gillen alleged she was described as: “I can’t stand that old bitch.” A colleague reportedly characterized the conduct as: “Vile… bullying, as is his reputation,” reflecting “misogynistic views about women.” After filing a complaint, Gillen stated: “I consider this retaliation.” She was removed from her anchor position the same day.
These allegations were denied and not adjudicated in court. They nonetheless describe a newsroom culture where accountability did not flow evenly. Long before the current cycle of coverage, Michele Gillen was doing the work.
Her investigation into the Miami-Dade County jail system, particularly the “Forgotten Floor,” documented the treatment of individuals with severe mental illness in conditions that forced public reckoning. Her reporting contributed to major reforms, including the closure of that unit and broader changes in how the system operates.
Ms. Gillen exposed what was hidden. She created the public record. She drove the urgency that exists today. This was not access journalism. This was investigation. And it changed the conversation.
Today, that same issue is being covered again without meaningful acknowledgment of the journalist who made it visible. There is no consistent credit, no contextual grounding, and no institutional memory.
Instead, the coverage relies on interviews with elected officials, institutional narratives, and politically focused blame. It revisits the issue without advancing it. In doing so, it benefits from Ms. Gillen’s work while quietly removing her from the story. This is where the contradiction sharpens.
The journalist with a documented ethical breach and later workplace allegations, Mr. DeFede, now positions himself as a voice of accountability on mental health. The journalist who exposed the system, Ms. Gillen, is largely absent from the current narrative. The policymaker asking for financial clarity, Chairman Rodriguez, is framed as the problem.
The structural questions about money, outcomes and influence remain unasked. That is not balanced scrutiny. It is selective pressure. Chairman Rodriguez asking questions is not the issue. The lack of answers is.
Ms. Gillen did the investigative work. She exposed the crisis. She forced the system into public view. What remains now is a narrative that amplifies urgency, assigns blame, and avoids deeper examination of power, funding and accountability.
When journalism forgets its own origins, it does not just lose context. It loses credibility. And what replaces it is not investigation. It is narrative control.
