Just to update anyone interested in this, I have come to a wall with Google support telling me:
While Google Docs' citation tool offers a convenient method for adding citations to your document, it does have certain limitations, particularly when it comes to locating specific sources online.
So basically, it works well.................when it works.
I brought this up during an AmplifiedIT weekly office hours webinar and they were concerned about this being possibly related to censorship of news articles. They saw what I was seeing using the the tool, as well as trying another 3rd party citation tool, and seemed to think it might be related to how news sites are coding links.
Again, I am not trying to make some major assumption about news websites in this political world, but something HAS changed within the past 1-2 months.