One of the coolest things about Fallout 3 was that Three Dog at GNR reported on almost every one of my actions. In this one Mr. New Vegas mentions my full recovery from the beginning of the game and that's it. He basically reports about the same things he's been reporting about from the beginning of the game even though I'm Level 12 and been at it for quite a while. The thing that makes me think that the news' role might be intentionally reduced is that he did in fact report on this one town's new sheriff who I installed. Is something wrong or is this lack of news updates by design?

It depends on what you do. He probably won't talk about the small group of slaves you saved from CL while wandering the desert. However, he will talk about how you saved the monorail (even if it blew up, lol) and other major story elements.