Following the recent article by the New York Times (NYT) on efforts by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to improve the state of Delhi government schools, several members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress, along with news channel Aaj Tak, claimed that the coverage was not a news story but part of a paid promotion.
The basis for this claim, according to their social media posts and news coverage, was the fact that United Arab Emirates-based newspaper Khaleej Times had also published the exact same article the next day.
BOOM found this claim to be false; our fact-check revealed that the Khaleej Times article was a republished version of the NYT article, with the former crediting NYT and Karan Deep Singh, the author of the article, for the story. Furthermore, BOOM also reached out to Nicole Taylor, Director of External Communication at the New York Times, who refuted the claims of the article being part of an advertorial, or paid promotion, and confirmed that it was part of a news coverage. She also confirmed that the article in Khaleej Times was a republication of the NYT story.
"Our report about efforts to improve Delhi's education system is based on impartial, on-the-ground reporting, and education is an issue that The New York Times has covered over many years. Journalism from The New York Times is always independent, free from political or advertiser influence. Other news outlets routinely license and republish our coverage," Taylor told BOOM.
On August 19, 2022, a day after the publication of the article on NYT's front page, the Central Bureau of Investigation conducted several raids at the residence of Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also helms the state's education department, and was featured heavily in the article. Following this, social media has been flooded with claims questioning the credibility of the NYT article. Along with the claim that the article is a paid promotion, we also found another false claim stating that the article had published images of a private school, and not an AAP-run government school.
Amit Malviya, BJP's IT Cell in-charge, was one of the people to make the false claim of paid promotion. He shared a clipped footage of Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal announcing the publication of the article on NYT, where the latter is heard saying that it is difficult to get a story published in the US-based newspaper. "How is it that New York Times and Khaleej Times carry exactly the same article, word by word, authored by the same person, same pictures (that too of a private school) on Delhi's non existent education model? Arvind Kejriwal's best defence is nothing but paid promotion," Malviya wrote.
Click here to view an archive of Malviya's tweet.
The exact same claim was also made by Punit Agarwal, BJP Delhi's IT Cell head, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Chairman of All India Kissan Congress, and Congress supporter Gaurav Pandhi.
Furthermore, Hindi news channel Aaj Tak also shared a tweet, which contained a news segment by anchor Sudhir Chaudhary, where he is seen making the exact same false claim. In this segment, Chaudhary states that the amount of praise for Delhi's education system, along with the fact that the exact same article was also published by Khaleej Times on the same day, indicates that it is a paid article.
In the following video, Chaudhary is heard making the claim at the 5:26 mark.
Click here to view an archive of Aaj Tak's tweet.
Fact-Check
BOOM first looked at the digital version of the NYT article, and could not find any mention of it being sponsored, or part of a paid promotion.
Furthermore, according to NYT's 'editorial standards', as mentioned on news outlet's website, those involved in news are obligated to refrain from being involved in any advertorial work. Therefore, according to their own guidelines, Karan Deep Singh - the Delhi-based journalist writing news for the publication, and the author of the NYT article in question, cannot have written it as part of a paid promotion.
We then looked for a digital copy of the Khaleej Times, which had indeed published the same article on August 19, 2022 on page number 10. This article too did not have any disclaimer stating it to be part of paid or sponsored content.
The Khaleej Times story, did attribute the article to the NYT, along with its journalist Karan Deep Singh, this indicating that the article was republished from the NYT.
BOOM then reached out to the NYT for a comment on the viral claims around the article being part of a paid promotion, which was then refuted by NYT Director of External Communications Nicole Taylor. She confirmed to us that the NYT article was a news coverage, and that the Khaleej Times article was a republication.
"Our report about efforts to improve Delhi's education system is based on impartial, on-the-ground reporting, and education is an issue that The New York Times has covered over many years. Journalism from The New York Times is always independent, free from political or advertiser influence," Taylor told BOOM.
The article by Khaleej Times is an example of syndicated content where usually large news publishers permit other news outlets to republish their content in exchange for a subscription fee and proper reporting credit.
News outlets such as the New York Times, Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal etc. offer syndicated feeds of their content to publishers globally.
In India, wire services such as Asian News International (ANI) and Press Trust of India (PTI) offer similar services to Indian news outlets.
We have reached out to the Khaleej Times for a comment, and the article will be updated if and when we get a response.