Fact Check: Posts Claiming NYT Published Article Calling PM Modi ‘Last Hope Of Earth’ Are False
Vishvas News fact-checked the viral post about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claimed coverage on the front page of the New York Times and found the purported screenshot to be fake and the claim to be false. The New York Times also confirmed that it has not published any such article.
- By: Pallavi Mishra
- Published: Jun 22, 2023 at 01:37 PM
New Delhi (Vishvas News) – As Prime Minister Narendra Modi tours the US, social media is abuzz with posts claiming that the New York Times published a news report on its front page, calling him the “LAST, BEST HOPE OF EARTH”. The posts feature an image of PM Modi with the strapline saying in all capital letters: “WORLD’S MOST LOVED AND MOST POWERFUL LEADER, IS HERE TO BLESS US.”
Vishvas News investigated and found the viral claim to be false and the claimed NYT front page to be fake. NYT authorities confirmed to us that no such article has been published by it.
What’s in the viral post:
The Facebook page ‘Yogi Samarthak Group’ shared a screenshot that uses NYT’s name, with the caption, “Proud to have a Prime Minister like #Modi ji #ModiHaiToMumkinHai”.
The archived version of the post can be viewed here.
Similar posts have been shared by other social media users too.
Investigation
To investigate the viral claim, Vishvas News conducted a keyword search on the New York Times website, but found no such story on the site currently or in its archive pages.
In the viral “screenshot”, the article’s publication date is stated as September 26, 2021, but the spelling of September is incorrect. It is written as ‘Setpember’. Such a mistake further raised suspicions about its authenticity.
Vishvas News checked the NYT website’s archive for the specific date, September 26, 2021, and noticed that the front page of that day featured a picture of a bridge. There was no news article about PM Modi in the entire edition.
We also found a tweet on the NYT official Twitter handle contradicting the viral image. The tweet, posted on September 29, 2021, stated, “This is a completely fabricated picture. All our factual reporting on Narendra Modi can be found here.” A link to the reports was shared with it.
We also searched for the photo of PM Modi used in the viral post. We found this image used in a news report on the Indian news portal News18.com with the dateline of June 26, 2021.
Vishvas News directly reached out to NYT via email. Charlie Stadtlander, the director of external communications, newsroom, and opinion for the publication, responded: “That image is fabricated, and no such headline or article was published by The New York Times.”
This edited image has been going viral time and again since 2021.
At the end of the investigation, we scanned the Facebook page ‘Yogi Samarthak Group’ that shared this post. The page has around 8,000 followers.
Conclusion: Vishvas News fact-checked the viral post about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claimed coverage on the front page of the New York Times and found the purported screenshot to be fake and the claim to be false. The New York Times also confirmed that it has not published any such article.
- Claim Review : PM Modi's photo on the front page of The New York Times.
- Claimed By : Facebook page Yogi SamarthakGroup
- Fact Check : False
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