New York Times Did Not Publish This ‘Article’ Praising India & Its Elections

The words originated from a comment posted under an NYT article in 2009, which talked about Indian elections.

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.

Who shared it?: 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.)

What is the truth?: 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.

How did we find that out?: In the comments section of Bedi's post, we found that a user pointed out that the article was actually from 2009.

• Taking this forward, we performed a keyword search with the words "v mitchell new york times 2009 india elections."

• This directed us 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.

The comments section: Further, we scrolled through the comments on the NYT article and 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.

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