Sac Bee and NY Times on the Wrong Side of the Nick Shirley Rally

The Globe covered the Stop Nick Shirley Act rally at the California State Capitol Wednesday. It was huge, and well attended, including Antifa protestors, despite radio reports of “hundreds of people,” or a “sparse crowd.”

There was not much mainstream media covering the event. I was told by one event speaker that the Sacramento Bee sent an intern to interview him.

I didn’t even see any reports on local television news about it.

The reporters who did do something about it really missed the point, as evidenced in an interview by New York Times reporter Laurel Rosenthal with Nick Shirley, and Sacramento Bee opinion writer LeBron Antonio Hill. Or, they were just being difficult and deliberately obtuse.

Rosenthal interviewed Nick Shirley after the rally, and claimed that the supporters of the Stop Nick Shirley Act (AB 2624), “they say it has nothing to do with you, that they had introduced it long before you had come to California, and that it’s really not about you.”

“That’s not true,” Nick Shirley said. “I announced on January 31st I was coming to California. I had already filmed the videos… the word had already gotten out that I had filmed inside immigration support service providers, and then they created the bill before I published the video.”

“Oh,” says Rosenthal. “They say it has to do with immigration service providers for a long time, including last year. They were not aware of your work when they felt there was a need for the bill,” she adds.

“That’s a lie,” Shirley says. “And, there’s already laws out for people getting doxxed. There’s no need for this bill. They are making a protected class by specifically saying ‘Immigration Support Service Providers.’ And they say ‘included but not limited to,’ and they list a whole bunch… but what does that actually mean? It’s so broad, it could literally mean anything under ‘Immigration Support Service Provider.'”

“There’s 10 million immigrants inside the state of California,” Shirley adds.

“So my understanding is the bill like actually adds immigrations support services providers to existing categories of people who already had this ‘safe at home’ protection,” Rosenthal counters.

“Yes, so they are putting them inside this new program, yet they are actually making a new protected class for people that work inside Immigration Support Service programs,” Shirley says, while Rosenthal nods and says “uh-huh.”

Nick Shirley leaves NY Times reporter SPEECHLESS after she attempts to defend the Stop Nick Shirley Act, a bill designed to effectively silence journalists who expose fraud.

This is exactly why no one trusts the legacy media.
pic.twitter.com/NrlFMjo4mO

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 27, 2026

He then explains the ‘safe at home’ protection’ program: “It’s for people whose predators are attacking them.”

Rosenthal asks, “So what is it that your’ve done that would be prohibited by this bill?”

“Have you read the bill?” Shirley asks.

“Yes. It does say it only applies if someone has to apply for this protection. It’s not that they automatically get it. They have to show they are being threatened, and they like have a law enforcement like approval…” Rosenthal adds.

Shirley responds: “So imagine a fraudster, who knows he’s committing fraud, and he’s like, ‘well now I’ll need this bill’… If I’m committing fraud, I’ll just enroll in this program as I’m committing fraud, and I’ll give them my paper that they can’t publish the video, according to the law.”

Rosenthal asks, “Do you think they could just fake they are facing a threat?”

“It says ‘harrassment’ on that bill. It says ‘unwelcome visitations.’ Unwelcome visits. Unreasonable fear.’ If I go expose a fraudster, are they going to be fearful? Of course.’

Rosenthal replies and asks, “Okay. What about the part of the bill that says ‘it’s only unlawful to post the information if you’re doing so to incite violence, or making threats?’ If you’re just posting information to inform the public, that wouldn’t be a violation, would it?”

“Who is to say if I expose it, I expose it to somebody else, and then a third party comes in and incites violence or harassment, what does that mean? It means they could literally hire somebody to go commit the crime, and say ‘that third party was because of Nick Shirley – that Nick Shirley is responsible for the crime, and we’re going to give Nick Shirley a $4,000 fine.'”

She’s thinking about this for a moment.

Nick continues: “So you, as a journalist go to the Learing Center – do you know what the Learing Center is?”

“I’ve watched your videos about that,” Rosenthal replies rather dismissively.

“So if you expose a Learing Center, where there are no kids at the day care, they’ve received $9 million, and it opens up a whole entire fraud ring, and then I expose it, a bunch of other people come in and say someone throws… someone paintballs the building – they cause fear because of the building, and you’re responsible for the actions of a third party.”

“But that problem is real. Like how it completely breaks the trust in the Amendment of Freedom of Press by putting other crimes upon another person, for reporting the truth.”

He continued: “People said the Minnesota fraud wasn’t true, for a long time and now we are seeing the few that are being arrested, nearly each and every single week, and are pleading guilty to that fraud. And the Democrats and the media said that problem wasn’t real.”

There is a pregnant pause, where she looks at him with disbelief and confusion on her face. Then she turns to the camera.

Nick Shirley adds, “the New York Times interviewed me, and they literally couldn’t finish the interview because I told her this bill is a violation of the First Amendment, and she was literally left speechless.”

The entire interview was 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Take the 4 minutes to watch it.

This New York Times reporter is a former Sacramento Bee reporter, former CalMatters reporter and former LA Times reporter, before moving to the NYT in 2025. She knows better. This was just embarrassing selective omission,  pretending not to understand the bill – even “statement journalism” that treats official or activist claims as settled.

Journalistic malpractice describes reporters or media outlets that systematically fail core professional duties: accuracy, verification, fairness, and putting truth ahead of ideology, audience capture, or commercial incentives.

The Sacramento Bee opinion piece was another story altogether, and brazenly obnoxious.

Writer LeBron Antonio Hill claims Nick Shirley, with nearly 2 million YouTube subscribers, is not a journalist but a conservative instigator whose visits to Somali-run daycares in Minneapolis, and later Southern California, produced stunts and conjecture rather than proven systemic fraud.

His claim that Shirley and the GOP are exploiting fear to attack immigrant advocates is dripping with loathing and detestation.

The headline:

“Nick Shirley and GOP exploit fear to attack California’s immigrant advocates”

From the article:

When I moved to California from Tennessee more than two years ago, I thought I had left conservative clown shows in political spaces behind. But there it was in Sacramento on Wednesday at the Capitol, where YouTube personality Nick Shirley put on a show in the name of exposing fraud that was nothing of the kind. Shirley’s has nearly two million subscribers on his YouTube channel. His fans in Sacramento on Wednesday told on themselves by wearing MAGA hats and American flag apparel. Shirley terrorizes groups that try to help immigrants, and these folks cheer him for that as if he were a superstar.

Someone really doesn’t understand the First Amendment.

Nick Shirley and GOP exploit fear to attack California’s immigrant advocates | Opinion https://t.co/tq0XBA5Jax

— The Sacramento Bee (@sacbee_news) August 27, 2026

“LeBron Hill is an opinion writer for The Sacramento Bee and a member of its Editorial Board. He is a native of Tennessee, with stops at The Tennessean in Nashville and the Chattanooga Times Free Press. LeBron enjoys writing about politics, culture and education, among other topics.”

Assembly Bill 2624 is the bill authored by Oakland Democrat Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, and the wife of Attorney General Rob Bonta, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last weekend.