Several English and Hindi news platforms on Thursday published reports by news agencies ANI and PTI claiming that the United States had come out “in support of India’s new farm laws saying it welcomes steps that would improve the efficiency of Indian markets and attract greater private sector investment”.
Had they bothered reading the statement released by the Americans, and attributed to a spokesperson for the State Department, the media outlets would have found that this was far from accurate.
As the news website Scroll reported, this is what the US statement actually says: “In general the United States welcomes steps that would improve the efficiency of India’s markets and attract greater private sector investment.” The US, however, “encourages that any differences between the parties be resolved through dialogue”.
That the statement doesn’t explicitly declare American’s support for the farm laws is a crucial detail that most news platforms omitted from their headlines.