Sarah Maslin Nir

She covered New York City's nightlife for the Times from 2010 until the end of 2011, as the paper's "Nocturnalist" columnist, once attending 25 parties in five days.

In February 2013, in an article on post-Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts in heavily Irish-American Breezy Point, Queens, Nir wrote about the community's lack of diversity and allegations of prejudice.

[15] These allegations were criticized by Niall O'Dowd and other Irish-American community leaders, who stated that the assertions amounted to a "clichéd stereotyping" of the neighborhood by Nir.

Bernstein, whose wife owns two nail salons, asserted that such wages were inconsistent with his personal experience, and were not evidenced by ads in the Chinese-language papers cited by the story.

In September and October 2015, hundreds of nail salon owners and workers protested at the NYT offices several times, in response to the story and the ensuing New York State crackdown.

[23] In October 2015, Reason published a three part re-reporting of the story by Jim Epstein, charging that the series was filled with misquotes and factual errors with respect to both its claims of illegally low wages and of health hazards.

[29][30] In December 2015, the Columbia Journalism Review investigated the effects of Nir's Unvarnished series on nail salon workers and owners, concluding that many nail salon workers were empowered and saw working conditions improved as a result of attention and legal reforms spurred by the reporting.