A high-ranking cabinet official in charge of $47 billion in funds decides to toss a million bucks to an organization he started in his kitchen. Said organization espouses radically controversial views disputed by many scientists. Sound like a story? It’s not. At least, not in the press. Assistant Secretary of Health Wade Horn has been on the radar of religious right watchers for years now, but he just doesn’t register with the press despite views on fatherhood and child-rearing — which, as Assistant Secretary of Children and Families, he has some influence on — that are controversial by any definition, and inappropriate for a government official by most. To wit: a proposal to limit Head Start programs to the children of married couples, and his assertion that wives should “submit” to their husbands.

Why is Wade Horn invisible to the press? Is it because the media is part of a vast right-wing conspiracy? Is it because reporters hate women and queers? Not likely. Rather, it has more to do with a decades-long decline in press coverage of the federal government’s middle managers, who oftentimes have more influence over our everyday lives than the boldface names. Such stories don’t sell papers, but they do serve the public interest.

Wade Horn’s shady tenure isn’t really a relgion story, despite the fact that he’s been tweaking the gears toward a little theocratic fiefdom; it’s a government management story, the kind the secular press is supposed to be able to handle. Cynthia Cooper, a leftist journalist, does mainstream media’s job for it at Talk2Action. But the story shouldn’t stop there — somebody needs to pick up Cooper’s ledes and bring to bear the investigative resources of a major news institution.