When a local news anchor spends hours filming your collapsed ceilings and interviewing victims, you expect the story to air. What you may not expect is that the former anchor for the station went on to work for the government agency you were trying to expose. The Story That Wasn’t Allowed to Air If you have been following our journey at The Subversive Consumerist, you know the physical toll our Virginia new construction nightmare has taken on our family from fires and floods to ceilings collapsing or leaking to long term health consequences for our kids. You also know that despite proving blatant building code violations and the illegal use of unlicensed subcontractors, the state’s regulatory body, the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation (DPOR), did more to help the builder scrub his record than to regulate or protect the public. But there is another side to this story we haven’t talked much about—the silence of the local media. A few years ago, we thought we were finally getting a breakthrough. Actually this happened more than once. First CBS, then Richmond Biz Sense, then News 12, but finally after reporters consistently disappointed, ABC 8 (News 8 Richmond) reached out and set interviews and a filming date. They sent an anchor and a cameraman to our home. They stayed for three to four hours. We opened up our files, laid out the documentation, and showed them the disconnected AC unit sitting in our driveway. We even provided them direct access to a whole group of other local families victimized by the exact same builder. I didn’t care who ended up on the news, just that finally someone was going to give voice to the dozens of families in our community development. Accounting for travel, setup, and interviews, that is easily 8 to 10 hours of professional media labor. The story never aired. Instead of exposing a developer facing over ten lawsuits in local courts (many more now), the station ultimately ran a corporate “puff piece” titled Pause Before You Pay, giving basic advice on how consumers should “verify a contractor’s license” using DPOR’s license lookup which has failed countless audits by the Office of the Inspector General and other oversight organizations for years now. It was a complete deflection. Our contractor was licensed. He simply broke the law behind our backs. So why did a major news network walk away from a heavily documented, high-stakes investigative piece to run a state agency PR campaign? Connecting the Dots: The PR-to-News Pipeline We don’t expect you to believe in coincidences. We just supply the documentation and observations. We want to know what you make of the evidence, too. Recently, I noticed an anomaly: someone left a glowing, positive review for DPOR on LinkedIn. If you know anything about DPOR, you know their actual consumer satisfaction rating is abysmally low, backed by thousands of complaints. Curious, I clicked the profile. The review was left by DPOR’s own former Director of Communications. When we looked at her professional resume, the puzzle pieces fell into place. For years, she worked heavily within Nexstar Media Group. Nexstar is the parent company of ABC 8, the station that sat in our living room filming our files. The former Director of Communications is Kerri O’Brian, News 8’s investigative anchor for over 15 years. Imagine the timeline: An investigative reporter visits a victim’s home, gathers overwhelming evidence, and goes to DPOR to get the state’s side of the story. Who do they talk to? The agency’s Director of Communications. A director who shares a deep, personal corporate history with the reporter’s network. While we cannot legally prove a favor was called in, we can look at the result: an extensive investigation into developer fraud is quietly buried, and a helpful, face-saving public relations piece for the state agency airs in its place. I would personally call that well directed communication. Bipartisan Protection for the Highest Bidder This media suppression is just the protective wrapper for a much deeper political grift. In Virginia, the real estate lobby and developers represent the largest, most powerful lobbying force in the commonwealth. Consider the financials we’ve covered previously: * Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares ran a Political Action Committee (PAC) called Virginians for Fair Maps. * Out of nearly $20 million (UPDATE: now over $23 million as of May 27, 2026) raised by that single PAC, over $15 million (UPDATE: over $20 million as of May 27th, 2026) was funneled directly into TV and radio advertising. * That massive sum moved entirely through a single entity called Del Rey Media, a company with no portfolio on their website, no other major accounts in Virginia politics, and a website so underwhelming it’s questionable for a media company moving $15 million dollars through the media. When $20 million in political ad spend flows directly into the pockets of media companies like Nexstar, do you honestly expect those same media networks to run hard-hitting investigative journalism that exposes the systemic corruption of those political donors? I sure don’t. But I am just stating my opinion. The Illusion of Oversight When the media fails, you turn to the law. But the protective wall extends there, too. When we brought documented evidence of this widespread executive branch fraud to the State Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Hotline under the Office of the State Inspector General (OSIG), we received a formal letter stating: “Your complaint falls outside the scope and jurisdiction of the hotline, and the OSIG does not have jurisdiction to intervene...” Yet, if you open the Code of Virginia, it explicitly defines DPOR as an agency operating directly within the executive branch. Investigating fraud within executive branch agencies is the literal, exact statutory definition of the Inspector General’s job. They simply chose not to do it. The System Isn’t Broken. It’s Working Perfectly. We often say the system is “broken.” Marty points out a much harsher truth in this week’s podcast episode, “The system isn’t broken at all. It is operating exactly as it was designed to.” Its current purpose isn’t to uphold the rule of law, protect home buyers, or support honest, law-abiding local contractors. Its purpose is to act as a financial and legal buffer that insulates wealthy political donors from accountability, while honest families are left to absorb catastrophic financial losses due to deregulation of industry that only serves corporations who pay big into political campaigns. We bought our home at the end of 2020. It is now 2026. In those six years, absolutely nothing has been done by the state to fix this systemic failure. Instead, the laws have been rewritten to be even more permissive for developers. The mom and pops are being pushed out by bigger firms, and families are suffering. We can’t make any determinations about the reasons for the media silence on these local stories, but we can connect the dots. We can provide you with the story ourselves. Ultimately, if the local news networks won’t publish the receipts, we will do it right here. For free. No one can restore what my family lost or recover my childrens’ health, but I certainly won’t allow other families to be blindsided by a systemic nighmare if all it takes to prevent more victims is sharing what I know. Remember: Don’t buy a house in Virginia until the regulatory enviornment is fair to families and restores consumer protections. [Link to Episode 10: The Media Politic] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andiedriffill.substack.com
