This is one of the things that print journalism can do really well (better than online): show a map of the US with lines indicating the line of communication between these corrupt contractors and officials.
Also a sidebar list of the players and the scandals that they have been involved with in the past and what they are currently under investigation for.
Picture is worth a thousand words.
I will be extremely surprised if Houston's own daily (The Houston Chronicle) goes anywhere with this story. Houston's free "alternative weekly" may touch on it (they have covered this man in the past and some corruption but they still favor Democrats over Republicans and the seated mayor is their guy).
There is an online blog ( http://www.lonestartimes.com ) that is associated with the independent (non-Clear Channel) conservative talk radio station (the one that actually tries to change things). I might be able to prod them into looking into this story. They try to have daily content.
First I heard of this was last night when I saw a small article on www.chron.com. I looked up the Brown aide again today on news.google.com and ran across these other articles broadening the scope from just "Cleveland investigation of former city employee" to Cleveland, New Olreans, Houston, Detroit, California...
Who knows where this will end up. I must admit that I am more interested in the local aspect of this story but there is shared corruption among these cities.
The Det News is very RINO to say the least. However they don't care much for Eddie Mac so something MAY come up there - IF the ties are to Wayne County government. If it's city of Detroit, they might as well.