Claim: A cartoon circulating on WhatsApp and social media that appears to depict the Pakistani military’s extensive involvement in the country’s political affairs was allegedly published in The New York Times.
Fact: The cartoon was created by Indian artist Mujaid Alam and first surfaced online in 2020. It was never published in The New York Times, as confirmed by a spokesperson for the paper.
On 4 July 2022, Soch Fact Check received a forwarded chain message on WhatsApp, featuring a cartoon allegedly published in The New York Times.
The cartoon shows five tables marked “Pakistan govt,” “military,” “parliament,” “courts,” and “media.” An image of an officer with the name tag, “Bajwa” — seemingly referring to the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Qamar Javed Bajwa — appears at each table.
A small portion of the artist’s signature is visible in the bottom left corner, while the accompanying text states, “Published by NewYork Times today.”
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check used Google Reverse Image Search and Google Lens to ascertain the source of the image and found a larger, complete version of it with the artist’s full signature and name.
The full-sized cartoon shows that the artist’s name is ‘AlamToons’, or Mujaid Alam. A 2 October 2020 tweet with the hashtag “#AlamToons” came up as a result of the Google search, attributing the comic to the same artist. The image was also shared on Strategic Front, an Indian national security discussion forum, on 3 October 2020.
We also found the artist on Instagram at @alamtoons, where they posted the same cartoon on 21 October 2021.
Soch Fact Check also reached out to The New York Times to confirm the veracity of the claim that the cartoon appeared in the American daily newspaper.
In a statement, The New York Times’ External Communications Director Nicole Taylor said, “This image has never been published by The New York Times. We stopped publishing daily political cartoons in both our US and International editions a number of years ago.”
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the 30-day period from 5 June to 5 July 2022 using the following search terms:
- “نیویارک ٹائمز کا آج کا کارٹون”
- “Published by NewYork Times today.”
- “نیویارک ٹائمز کارٹون”
The first search term turned up just two posts on Facebook, while the second showed almost 100 interactions across nearly a dozen posts, including this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. The third search term turned up four posts, including this, this, and this.
On Twitter, the cartoon in question appeared on multiple accounts, such as here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, as well as on a verified page.
Conclusion: The cartoon apparently depicting the Pakistan military’s extensive involvement in the country’s political affairs was never published in The New York Times, as confirmed by the paper’s spokesperson. The image was created by cartoonist Mujaid Alam and shared on social media in 2020.