The NYT puzzles over the Nick Shirley video.

I'm reading "An Intense White House Response From a Single Viral Video/A video purporting to expose extensive fraud at child care centers in Minnesota shows the relationship between the Trump administration and self-described citizen journalists" (NYT).

A 43-minute video posted online in the past week, purporting to expose extensive fraud at Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota, has been viewed by millions of people. It has also set off a series of events that show the symbiotic relationship between the Trump administration and self-described citizen journalists. 

It was posted to X and YouTube the day after Christmas by Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old who has made a name for himself in the past two years by producing viral content that aligns with MAGA policies. In the video, Mr. Shirley is accompanied by a man identified only as David, who claims to have uncovered fraud worse than “anywhere else ever in history.”

Specifically, the man says he has identified dozens of child care and autism centers receiving millions of dollars in state funding without caring for any children. The New York Times could not verify the claims made in the video. Mainstream news sites have reported on cases of social services fraud in Minnesota for years, including a 2,200-word article in The Times last month. But Mr. Shirley’s video hit a nerve....

Could not verify.... That ought to mean that the New York Times, mobilizing its dominating journalism power and skill, could not figure anything out? What were Shirley's "claims," anyway? I've been holding back from talking about Shirley's viral video because it was in the style of a "Daily Show" comedy segment. Yes, it's a scintillating contrast to formal, professional journalism, but what do we do with it? Laugh? Feel confirmed in our pre-existing cynicism? Wait for professional journalism to take the viral video as an assignment and mount an instant full-scale investigation and deliver a sober account?

Equipped with little more than iPhones, Mr. Shirley and other right-wing YouTubers and livestreamers zigzag around the country — and overseas — in search of politically charged footage. In many cases, these digital activists pick up on themes that have circulated for months, or even years, but still generate online outrage and action from a government primed to jump into the fray....

That's got to be so annoying to mainstream media. But isn't it filling a gap mainstream media leaves open by failing to cover stories that hurt Democrats?

Mr. Shirley’s latest video appears to have been filmed on Dec. 17 in and around Minneapolis, where he knocks on the doors of numerous child care and autism centers. In some cases, there is no answer. When someone does open up, Mr. Shirley demands to see whether there are children inside but is never shown any.

At each stop, Mr. Shirley, citing state billing records, announces that the operation is fraudulent because he does not see any children. All told, he claims to have personally uncovered $110 million in fraud... 

According to the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families, one of the locations Mr. Shirley visited, Mako Childcare Center, has been out of business for three years. Another location, Quality Learning Center, got particular attention because Mr. Shirley noticed that a sign over its door misspelled “Learning” as “Learing.”... “We don’t know if children were or were not present at the time the video was taken,” the Department of Children, Youth and Families said in a statement regarding the video. “When our licensers have conducted visits to the buildings,” it added, “there have been children present.”...

To repeat what I put in boldface above, "The New York Times could not verify the claims made in the video." But what did the NYT do in this effort to verify? Did it merely speak to some unnamed person at the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families? Those who have made Shirley's video viral seem inclined to think the state officials are corrupt, so you've got to do more than just ask them. Sniff all you want at "self-described citizen journalists," but what have you professional journalists done? You "could not verify the claims"?

But there was that 2,200-word article in The Times last month. It's titled, "How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch/Prosecutors say members of the Somali diaspora, a group with growing political power, were largely responsible. President Trump has drawn national attention to the scandal amid his crackdown on immigration."

We need a lot more of that sort of thing.

I can't help suspecting that the NYT is only covering this story enough to cover its own ass after the story breaks elsewhere. Take the lead in ferreting out corruption or the "self-described citizen journalists" will be forever forcing you to play catch up.

AND: If "Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch," why did you only tell us that in November 2025 — a year after this apparently awful governor was vying for the vice presidency? Why was Kamala Harris able to choose him as the person who deserved to be, as they say, a heartbeat away from the presidency?