The NYT has again shown why liberal media is losing its clout faster than Will Smith loses his temper. In December 2021, the propaganda portal tried to downplay India’s faster recovery. Now, with its recent editorial in which it did not subject Joe Biden to the same standard as it does to PM Modi, it has given one more reason to Indians to not read NYT for a reliable editorial.
US GDP declines
The American economy is reeling. It is under tremendous pressure in the post-covid world. On one hand, businesses are facing labour shortages while on the other, the unemployment rate is still high. The Joe Biden administration has been found paying more for people to stay home than they would be paid in an actual job. If people are being paid for not doing any job, then they will not do a job; because deep down everyone is lazy. All of this has an impact on the US Economy. With the decline in productivity, Gross domestic product (GDP) goes down. And this is exactly what has happened in the USA.
NYT twists the narrative around falling GDP
In the first three month of the year, America’s GDP declined by 0.4 percent. Obviously, it is a big failure for any government, especially when Corona is not a big threat anymore. But, look at the way, NYT twisted the numbers in favour of Joe Biden administration. NYT decided to give distinction to the USA’s performance in the post covid world. It goes on to blame inventories and international trade for the Biden administration’s failure.
Newspaper claims that because the companies had already stacked up too much during Covid, they did not spend much on buying new products in 2022, which led to decline in factory output. Similarly, while blaming declining international trade, NYT wrote that imports in the US have soared while exports have declined. It blamed other countries for decline in exports as the Newspaper believes that they could not recover in time as they didn’t buy enough US made products.
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But wait, isn’t it self-contradictory? If you have enough to export and countries are unable to buy your products, then why are you not making your people consume those products which you are producing for export? Why are you relying on imports to serve the economic needs of your country? Only God knows what NYT was thinking before publishing it.
NYT sees a bright side in the US GDP numbers
Then, it presented a rosy picture of the US economy by stating that consumer spending and business investments have grown in the US. It gave data for increased consumer spending as it increased by 0.7 percent. “Consumer spending is the aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean — it just keeps plowing ahead,”, it quoted an economist.
However, the credit for this goes to the US government providing free cash to US citizens and millions of migrants. It does not mean that people in the US are earning a good amount of money to spend.
NYT cited no data to prove that business investments are growing in America.
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Hypocrisy-Thy name is New York Times
Now, let’s compare its report about the US economy to how it describes India’s economic recovery. Throughout the whole pandemic, it tried to demean the Modi government’s efforts towards improving Indian economic prospects. The newspaper which had raised questions about India’s GDP calculation in 2019 just could not digest the fact that in spite of having fewer lockdowns, India was on a sharper recovery trajectory.
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Without waiting for removal of covid restrictions, it went on to write in September 2020 that Covid had shattered India’s big dreams. In April, 2021, it published a report titled “Covid-19 Pushes India’s Middle Class Toward Poverty”. The fact of the matter is that India actually saved millions of people from going into extreme poverty during Covid.
Then, when official numbers started to indicate that India is on sharper recovery, NYT again showed its anti-India (or should we say anti-Modi) tilt by showing India’s data as untrustworthy.
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NYT played along but still tried to gain an upper hand
By the end of 2021, it had become impossible to deny India’s Economic recovery. So, the New York Times tried to give it an unscientific Twist. On 30th November, 2021, it published an opinion titled “Weak Recovery Leaves India’s Middle Class Anxious and Frugal”. The opinion was written by a New Delhi based journalist Karan Deep Singh. Viewers should note that NYT puts a person with an Indian name in charge to showcase that whatever they are reporting about India is trustable.
The fact is it is not always true. In fact, it is rarely true. In his analysis, Karan Deep Singh seems to rely on his personal experience more than data crunching on official numbers. To downplay India’s economic growth of 8.4 percent in a particular quarter, he cites shopkeepers’ account of decline in sales of personal shops. Through showing that their sales have declined, Singh tries to showcase that India’s middle class is not willing to pay much in the post-pandemic world.
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However, rarely does a personal account can be called representative of the whole. Multiple factors are present when a business registers fall in the revenue. It may be true that another shopkeeper benefitted from a decline in his sales. Besides, we do not know whether NYT actually talked to an actual businessman, as in the past they have tried to peddle fake news against India.
Ever since PM Modi came to power, NYT has always tried to belittle India’s growth story. The Newspaper which has won 132 Pulitzer prizes in the past once advertised that it will only hire anti-Modi business correspondents. So, it is no longer a surprise when they blatantly disregard logic and reason for registering an ideological coup in narrative war. What can you expect from a Newspaper which considers Rana Ayyub to be a credible journalist?
