Woodward. Bernstein. Cronkite. Wolfe. Murrow.
Shirley?
YouTuber Nick Shirley rocked Minnesota last year with a guerilla expose of government fraud. Sure, we laughed along at the "learing center" sign and other elements of Shirley's lo-fi sting. What he uncovered was serious, expansive, and mostly untouched by modern journalists.
A story here, and a report there, sure. The scope of the fraud never caught the national media's attention or forced lawmakers to aggressively address the problem. How did the Legacy Media respond to Shirley's expose? Some news sites tried to discredit Shirley instead of digging deeper into the crisis.
Even a Bari Weiss-led CBS News piled on Shirley with a dubious fact-checking investigation.
Did Shirley nail ever detail in the grand journalistic tradition? No. Did he wake up a country to expansive fraud in one state, suggesting the other 49 may have some explaining to do?
Absolutely.
So what happened next? Not much, really.
Late-night hosts ignored the scandal. So did "Saturday Night Live." August news organizations did little to expand on what the 20-something influencer unveiled. Nothing to see here, move along to the next Fake News item meant to take down President Donald Trump at long last.
Those walls don't close in by themselves.
To be fair, CBS News ran a March 10 piece exploring similarly shocking issues tied to hospice care, highlighted by a California pickleball player who is supposed to be in the final stages of life. She looked pretty fit to us.
This time, he dug deeper into California's hospice marketplace. putting a fresh, human face on the problem.
This is how the hospice fraud works:
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) March 17, 2026
- Get a small office in LA
- Collect Medicare beneficiary numbers
- Enroll people into hospice
- Bill the government for millions
Get caught or become suspicious?
Pack up and walk away with millions
END ALL THE FRAUD. pic.twitter.com/xbQFCXKH6B
In baseball, if a pitcher hits the batter, he'll dig in harder next time to tear the cover off the ball. When a hockey player sees a teammate get bodied off the puck, he'll make sure that player pays dearly on the very next shift.
It's payback, and it's a natural part of our competitive nature.
Not in modern journalism. Today's reporters live in mortal fear of exposing corruption, fearing it could lead back to the Democrats or reveal the perils of Big Government. They no longer care about being scooped by the competition, which must make old-school reporters of yore grind their teeth.
And it's not about money. Investigative reporting can be expensive and time-consuming, but Shirley did it on the cheap. Couldn't a few seasoned reporters follow up on his information without breaking the bank? Or do these outlets want Shirley to scoop up all the clicks?
Reporters did pounce and seize on the phony "surf and turf" scandal tied to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, though.
Shirley has done more than expose rampant fraud. He's proven that most modern journalists have little interest in journalism.
