Fact Check: Did the New York Times Call India’s Election the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’? Achi-News

Did the New York Times call the Indian election ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’?

News Assurance: Fake News
Text copied from a user comment posted under an article in 2009.

(This fact was verified by Logical Fact as part of Shakti Collective)

Claim identification number adec874a
What is the claim?
Former police officer and former Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry Kiran Bedi shared a post on his official account X (formerly Twitter) on May 5, 2024. He said the post was a New York Times article about general elections in India.

“Here is an article in the New York Times, here is a glimpse of a foreign newspaper published while Indian insiders mourned,” Bedi wrote. He tagged the New York Times and the Election Commission of India in the post.

The rest of the text reads: “Indian Elections – New York Times. It really is the greatest show on earth. A model for diverse and democratic politics. Where 700 million + humanity will vote. It plays a small role in guiding their ancient civilization into the future. India is no less influential in a neighborhood that includes destabilized and violent Pakistan, China and Burma. He goes on to praise India’s diversity. How inspiring it is to see the nation preparing for the general elections.”

This post was also shared on other social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. Archives of such posts can be found here and here.

But the claim is false. The New York Times never published such an article.

What we found
This post has been shared since 2009 by some users under Kiran Bedi’s post. We found that the commenter said it was not an official New York Times article. We ran a keyword search using some of the text in Bedi’s post to find its source. This led us to a comment posted by a reader of a 2009 article (archived here) published by the Daily.

The article “As Elections Near, Tightrope Awaits in India” was written by Somini Sengupta. Published on April 14, 2009 ahead of the general elections held in India between April 16, 2009 and May 13, 2009. Below are seven comments. This article and one of them is by V Mitchell, the same name can be found at the end of Kiran Bedi’s post. The content of this comment and the now viral post are identical.

This indicates that a comment under an article by The New York Times has been misattributed to the newspaper. In an email response to Logical Facts, Nicole Taylor, managing director of external communications, confirmed that no such text or article had been published by The New York Times.

opinion
A user’s comment posted under a 2009 New York Times article praising India’s diversity during general elections was shared as an article published by the news agency.

(Update: This fact-checking story has been updated to include a response from The New York Times)

News quotes

As Elections Approach, Tightrope Remains in India – The New York Times

Comments under The New York Times article

Click here to fact check the original article

(This fact was verified by Logical Fact as part of Shakti Collective)

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