{"id":105675,"date":"2025-06-05T12:13:51","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T07:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?p=105675"},"modified":"2025-06-05T12:13:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T07:13:51","slug":"washington-post-examines-disinformation-in-indian-media-amid-war-with-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/105675\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post examines disinformation in Indian media amid war with Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Pakistan(National Times)- In an interview with\u00a0<em>The Washington Post<\/em>, journalists from various Indian biggest media houses discussed why lies were so prevalent during the country&#8217;s most recent war with Pakistan. The nation&#8217;s information environment was overrun with lies, the paper learnt in a report by Karishma Mehrotra. As per Mehrotra&#8217;s account,\u00a0<em>Prasar Bharati<\/em>, the state-owned public broadcaster, sent a WhatsApp message to an Indian media person just after midnight on May 9. The message stated that a coup was in progress and that Pakistan&#8217;s army chief had been apprehended,\u00a0<em>The News\u00a0<\/em>reported. The journalist shared the information on X right away, and others did the same. It quickly gained popularity on social media and was broadcast on major Indian news networks. The complete &#8220;breaking news&#8221; was untrue. No coup took place in Pakistan. In contrast to the reports of General Asim Munir\u2019s arrest, he was soon to be elevated to the field marshal\u2019s rank. It was the most glaring \u2014 but far from the only \u2014 example of how misinformation swept through Indian newsrooms in May during several of the most violent nights between the nuclear-armed neighbours in decades. <em>The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0spoke to more than two dozen journalists from some of India\u2019s most influential news networks, as well as to current and former Indian officials, about how the country\u2019s information ecosystem became inundated with falsehoods \u2014 and how it warped the public\u2019s understanding of a crucial moment. The journalists spoke on the condition that their names and employers remain anonymous, fearing professional reprisals. Most of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. As the fighting escalated night after night, few Indian officials were put forward to explain what was happening, said Nirupama Rao, India\u2019s former foreign secretary. The vacuum was filled on television newscasts by \u201chypernationalism\u201d and \u201cabnormal triumphalism,\u201d Rao said, creating what she called a \u201cparallel reality.\u201d <em>Times Now Navbharat<\/em>\u00a0reported that Indian forces had entered Pakistan;\u00a0<em>TV9 Bharatvarsh<\/em>\u00a0told viewers that Pakistan\u2019s prime minister had surrendered; Bharat Samachar said he was hiding in a bunker. All of them, along with some of the country\u2019s largest channels \u2014 including\u00a0<em>Zee News, ABP News\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>NDTV<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 repeatedly proclaimed that major Pakistani cities had been destroyed. To support the false claims, networks aired unrelated visuals from conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, from a plane crash in Philadelphia \u2014 and even scenes from video games. <em>Zee News, NDTV, ABP News, Bharat Samachar, TV9 Bharatvarsh, Times Now\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>Prasar Bharati\u00a0<\/em>did not respond to requests for comment. \u201cIt\u2019s the most dangerous version of what a section of TV news channels have been doing for a decade, completely unchecked,\u201d said Manisha Pande, media critic and managing editor of Newslaundry, an independent news outlet. \u201cAt this point, they\u2019re like Frankenstein\u2019s monsters \u2014 completely out of control.\u201d &#8216;Bad fiction writers&#8217;: India has one of the most expansive and linguistically diverse media landscapes in the world. Around 900 television channels attract millions of viewers each evening across Indian towns and cities; newspapers still have a wide reach in rural areas. Over many decades, the country\u2019s independent press has played a critical role in exposing government corruption and holding power to account. In the past decade, however, particularly in television news, that independence has been eroded. Some of India\u2019s largest channels now routinely echo government talking points, analysts say \u2014 out of ideological alignment with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or as a result of pressure from the state, which has prosecuted journalists under terrorism, sedition and defamation laws, as well as by using regulatory threats and tax probes to silence critical voices. Pande also attributes the shift to opportunism. \u201cFor most of these anchors, aligning with power is a calculated career move,\u201d she said. Journalists in these newsrooms were dismayed by the lack of fact-checking during the conflict. \u201cJournalism has just become anything that lands on your WhatsApp from whoever,\u201d said one journalist with a leading English-language news channel. \u201cYou realise the cost of that at times like this.\u201d Just before midnight on May 8, in a WhatsApp message exchange seen by\u00a0<em>The Post<\/em>, a journalist with a major Hindi-language network messaged colleagues: \u201cIndian navy can carry out an attack imminently,\u201d citing unnamed sources. Another staffer responded simply, \u201cKarachi,\u201d but gave no details on sourcing. Within minutes, the channel was falsely reporting that the Indian navy had struck the port in Karachi, Pakistan\u2019s largest city. \u201cThe channels were taken over by bad fiction writers,\u201d a network employee said. A journalist in a different newsroom said their channel ran the story after confirmation from the Indian navy and air force. India\u2019s military did not respond to a request for comment. Others admitted to airing the story based on claims from social media influencers closely aligned with the ruling party, or posts from open-source intelligence accounts. Sweta Singh, a popular anchor on India Today, declared on air that \u201cKarachi is seeing its worst nightmare after 1971,\u201d referring to the most devastating war between the two countries. \u201cIt completely finishes Pakistan,\u201d she added. Singh did not respond to requests for comment. Around 8am on May 9, the Karachi Port Trust posted on X that no attack had occurred. But some Hindi newspapers had already published the news on their front pages. As erroneous reports ricocheted across Indian channels, retired military officials gave them credence in freewheeling panel discussions. Breaking news banners were accompanied by the swoosh of illustrated fighter jets. At one point, the government issued a public advisory urging broadcasters to refrain from using air raid sirens in their graphics, warning it could desensitise the public to real emergencies. \u201cWe stand by the information shared and press releases issued based on verified intelligence and digital evidence available to us,\u201d the media wing of the Pakistani army said in a statement to\u00a0<em>The Post<\/em>. Competition drove much of the chaos in India. On\u00a0<em>NDTV<\/em>, the country\u2019s most-watched news channel according to the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, a hot mic caught a reporter in the field venting his frustration to the control room: \u201cFirst you keep saying, \u2018Give an update, give an update,\u2019 and then later you say, \u2018Why did you give something fake?\u2019\u201d During a talk show on the Hindi news channel Aaj Tak, a young man in the audience asked about \u201cthe embarrassment we have faced from the international community when our news channels were spreading unverified information.\u201d The reporter swung the microphone away before he could finish the question. A head of public relations for TV Today, which runs\u00a0<em>Aaj Tak<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>India Today<\/em>, did not respond to requests for comment. \u201cI felt depressed at the state of affairs,\u201d an anchor at a leading English-language news channel told\u00a0<em>The Post<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s time to introspect.\u201d Information war: As strikes between the countries intensified each night, Indian officials, led by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, would generally wait until morning to brief the press. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s first public remarks on the conflict came two days after the May 10 ceasefire; Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar shared only a one-line post on X during the clashes. The vacuum was filled by television anchors. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost the information war to these characters,\u201d said a former Indian navy admiral. But one senior Indian national security official said the misinformation played to India\u2019s advantage. If lower-level government sources deliberately spread false claims, it was to \u201ctake advantage of the information space\u201d and create \u201cas much confusion as possible because they know the enemy is watching,\u201d the official said. \u201cSometimes the collateral is your own audience, but that is how it is,\u201d the official added. \u201cThat is how war has evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan(National Times)- In an interview with\u00a0The Washington Post, journalists from various Indian biggest media houses discussed why lies were so prevalent during the country&#8217;s most recent war with Pakistan. The nation&#8217;s information environment was overrun with lies, the paper learnt in a report by Karishma Mehrotra. As per Mehrotra&#8217;s account,\u00a0Prasar Bharati, the state-owned public broadcaster, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Washington Post examines disinformation in Indian media amid war with Pakistan - Nation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/105675\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Washington Post examines disinformation in Indian media amid war with Pakistan - Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pakistan(National Times)- In an interview with\u00a0The Washington Post, journalists from various Indian biggest media houses discussed why lies were so prevalent during the country&#8217;s most recent war with Pakistan. 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