Methods of Misinformation/Propaganda — The NYT’s Attempts to Tar Hindus

(Second in the series of articles on NYT’s coverage of Hindus, Hinduism, India)

It may be pointed out by those who read my first piece on this matter that the methods the Russians, the Iranians, or the North Koreans use to spread disinformation are vastly different from the reportorial methods used by any modern newspaper, radio or television channel: that the former is based on stealth and untraceability, with the intent to mislead and undermine, whereas the Western media’s intent is to inform, engage, debate, and challenge. Defenders of The New York Times or Western media in general may also argue that we can differentiate the effects of the coverage by modern media versus the effects of disinformation by untraceable bots launched by the Russians, the Iranians, or the North Koreans. In this second in the series of articles on NYT’s coverage of India, we will focus on some of the methods used by the NYT when covering India/Hindu/Hinduism.

We are asked to believe that as opposed to the openness of Western media that disseminates “information” what we have is the stealth of the Russians in their “disinformation” campaigns. We are led to believe that what the Western media disseminates is the “truth” — veridical with reality, and “rational, logical, scientific, realistic, and objective” as Ronald Inden (1990) characterized Orientalists’ belief in the quality of their knowledge as opposed to the knowledge that Indians had of themselves.