Claim
A viral message praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been revived on social media platforms falsely attributing it to a person named Joseph Hope and mentioning Hope to be the editor-in-chief at the US-based publication The New York Times. An excerpt from the viral message claims that Hope expressed his views about PM Modi saying, "Narendra Modi's sole aim is to make India a better Country. If he is not stopped, in the future, India will become the most powerful nation in the world. It will surprise even the USA, the United Kingdom, and Russia, Japan."
Fact
A spokesperson for The New York Times confirmed to BOOM that the message is fake when it was circulated in 2021. Nicole Taylor, Director of Communications, refuted the claim via an email saying, "Any message attributed to Joseph Hope as Editor of The New York Times is a fabrication and untrue. The editor of The New York Times is Dean Baquet. Our newsroom is independent, and you can find our original reporting on India at www.nytimes.com/india." We had also found that Baquet was listed as the Executive Editor on NYT's official website. As of August 2023, the executive editor of the US-based publication is Joseph Kahn.