New Delhi: Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Monday held a press conference to allege the Indian media organisation newsclick.in was spreading Chinese propaganda and quoted a report in The New York Times on how it was being funded by China for its propaganda.
NewsClick has been in operation since 2009 and claims to be an independent media organisation, founded by veteran journalist Prabir Purkayastha and its Readers' editor is another veteran Urmilesh, who was earlier with Hindustan, a Hindi daily of the Hindustan Times Group.
Senior Journalists Under Scrutiny
Many senior journalists associated with NewsClick may also be in trouble as at the hint of the BJP and Anurag Thakur, the Godi Media is identifying them for the government action.
Thakur had faulted the NYT in the past for spreading anti-India propaganda, but he found nothing wrong in its report to slam Congress on how it has been defending US millionaire Neville Roy Singham and media portal NewsClick when they were investigated by India's law enforcement agencies in 2021.
Funding and Propaganda: NYT Report Insights
He told a press conference that even newspapers like The New York Times are now admitting that Neville Roy Singham and his NewsClick are dangerous tools of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and promoting China’s political agenda across the world.
The NYT report says Singham is "working with the Chinese government media machine and financing its propaganda worldwide" and the US non-profits are being used to push Chinese talking points."
NewsClick Allegedly Got ₹38 Cr From China
In the Lok Sabha, it was turn of BJP MP Nishikant Dubey referring to the US daily's report and mounted attack on the Congress on how the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation was getting funds from China. He claimed NewsClick got Rs 38 crore from China as per the NYT report.
Desh Neeti, a political Hindi news channel, claimed several independent journalists, including Ravish Kumar, a former editor of NDTV Hindi channel, who had came out openly to protest the ED and the CBI in 2021, may find the two agencies knocking at their homes as the Godi Media became busy demanding action against them for backing the anti-India NewsClick.
The "Chinese Talking Points"
"In New Delhi, corporate filings show, Mr Singham's network financed a news site, NewsClick, that sprinkled its coverage with Chinese talking points," the NYT report read.
In a long post on X, formerly Twitter, the I&B minister wrote that long before NYT, India has been telling the world that NewsClick is a "dangerous global web of Chinese propaganda."
"Way back in the year 2021, when India's law enforcement agencies initiated an inquiry against NewsClick based on strong evidence of money laundering, the Congress and the entire Left-Liberal ecosystem came to defend it," he added.
