An article purportedly published by the New York Times (NYT) is being shared to claim that the media organisation recently shared its views on elections conducted in India and praised the country. Among other social media users, former Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry Kiran Bedi shared the text claiming it to be from an article in NYT.
The post had received around 20 thousand views on the platform. We received a query about the viral claim on our WhatsApp tipline. (Archives of similar claims can be accessed here, here, and here.)
The claim is misleading as NYT did not publish any such article. However, the text was seen in the comments section under an NYT article that was published in 2009. It talked about the upcoming elections in India.
The post was discovered to be false after a user in the comments section of Bedi's post, pointed out that the article was actually from 2009.
Taking this forward, a keyword search with the words "v mitchell new york times 2009 india elections" was performed. This was directed to a report published in NYT in 2009 with the headline, "As Elections Near, Tightrope Awaits in India." It talked about the upcoming elections and different kinds of strategies undertaken by the Congress and other parties while campaigning. The author of this article was named Somini Sengupta.
While scrolling through the comments on the NYT article, it was found that a user named 'V Mitchell' had commented about his views on India and its elections. While the user had said the same words as seen in the viral post, it was a comment as opposed to an article published by NYT. This not only makes the claim misleading but also changes the context.
Conclusion: A comment under an NYT article is being shared to claim that the media organisation recently expressed its views on elections in India and praised the country.
This story was originally published by The Quint as a part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline and the excerpt, the story has not been edited by The News Minute staff. The original story can be found here.