NYT Fawns Over Don Lemon In 'He Is The News' Feature, Dismisses Nick Shirley

Don Lemon's agent deserves a raise. 

Nearly three years after he was fired from CNN after watching his career go up in flames when he was demoted from his nighttime role to a morning co-anchor, Don Lemon is being fawned over by the New York Times. 

In a fluff piece released this week, a Times reporter declared that Lemon is "our most 2026 journalist" and followed that up by boldly writing that Don, 60, "is the news," which does have some validity since Lemon was arrested by federal agents over his involvement with an anti-ICE protest at a Minneapolis church.

That's being written about a guy who will post YouTube videos that do 19k-100k views. OutKick's David Hookstead routinely posts YouTube videos tripling those numbers and the Times has never written a word about our beloved Hook. 

Instead, the Times fawns over a performance artist who proudly went into a Minneapolis church where scumbag protesters then harassed people who were praying. 

Don Lemon is a performance artist parading around calling himself a journalist. (Photo by Jeremy Moeller/Getty Images)

"Yet if Lemon is not the most statesmanlike figure committing journalism in 2026, or the most evenhanded, or the most likely to be held up as a model at journalism schools, he has achieved a more relevant distinction, whatever the outcome in court: Here is our most 2026 journalist, unaffiliated and unbound, self-immolating and self-regarding, deeply trusted by a fragmented audience in an age of fragmentation and collapsing audience trust, telling his followers a story about the country and its leader with such total commitment that he became that story’s central character," Times reporter Matt Flegenheimer penned. 

This is the same Don Lemon who used to routinely get absolutely plastered on New Year's Eve during his CNN days as part of his schtick. It's the same Lemon who said Megyn Kelly "looked trans."

The Don Lemon that the Times is fawning over is the same Don Lemon who blamed female Olympic boxers for the beatings they sustained at the hands of Imane Khelif, who recently admitted to having a chromosome associated with biological males. 

Even with all that on Don's resume, the Times was comfortable with Don carrying the 2026 Journalist Of Our Times torch. 

The Times praises Don while pretty much ignoring what Nick Shirley created in Minneapolis which Lemon latched onto

"MAGA YouTuber," is how the NY Times described Shirley in February. 

"The new wave of fraud-themed content, made by creators like Mr. Shirley, invokes familiar themes of populist rage and elite resentment. It seems to be the latest evolution in a culture where posting is a primary method of practicing politics — except these posts appear to be made not only to get in on a trending wave, but also to provoke policy action," wrote the Times. 

Then, the reporter contacted a British academic who characterized Shirley and other fraud-tracking YouTubers as members of the "Slopulism" movement. 

In other words, what Don Lemon does is journalism; Shirley does slop. 

Got it. 

Going into a church with your camera running and seemingly acting giddy that white people worshiping are being harassed is journalism. Meanwhile, going Mike Wallace on Somali daycares is considered slop. 

Don Lemon got fired by CNN at the perfect time. Then, the NYT would have you believe, he became a modern journalist while the likes of Nick Shirley are slop propagandists. (OutKick graphic)

Let that sink in. 

In an early February story on Shirley, the Times found a University of Washington professor who called the YouTuber's work, "participatory propaganda."

Do you know what word never appears in Don Lemon's glowing feature story? 

Propaganda. 

Not once. 

I'll say it again: You actually don't hate the mainstream media enough. Let this Don Lemon story be your reminder.