> The NYT is not the primary source of truth for policymakers in the United States.
I don't have any issue with most current policymakers in US (for the past decade at the very least). Surprisingly most US lawmakers have their own individual views on India (unaffected/not influenced by Western media) and have a good working relationship with the GoI (including Modi and more specifically Jaishankar). This includes policymakers from both sides of the political spectrum (Republicans as well as the Democrats). Thank God for that. Else if they actually believed half the articles that came out of papers like NYT or Washington Post, they would have a totally warped understanding of India. And a really negative one at that. Policymakers pre-Bush era got most things about India wrong (and paid a price for it too with WTC bombings, 9/11 and finding Osama Bin Laden hiding close to their Ally's military complex). US Policymakers have changed their outlook and very few actually hold on to the anti-India stance that they once had. That's welcome.
My issue is with the common citizens getting a warped view of India. That's all.
> In the Media that is actually consumed and read and used by policymakers like when I was on the Hill, as well as in the educational programs that bring future Americans into the Foreign Service.
That's good to know. But Western Media still has a lot to catch up vis-a-vis being unbiased. They still heavily tilt towards parties that are non-BJP. That is fine if that is their intended outlook. But at least let it not pretend to be unbiased then.
> The media ecosystem in the US works the same way as how the media works pin India. I haven't seen very nuanced discussions about American institutions in the Dainik Jagran, Hindustan Times, or WION either.
Yes I agree with you that Indian media is biased too. Most of the media outlets are pro-Modi/pro-BJP. And in a way it should also be seen as a counter to Western media outlets and continuous disinformation/propaganda that kept coming from there. Let us not forget that people who work in Media organizations also have their own individual biases and they typically hire people who subscribe to their biases. It is not always necessarily a money thing (where the ruling party pays a media organization to speak in its favour). Many a times it is purely for ideological reasons.
Much the same as NYT or WP. The only problem is when NYT/WP is that it proclaims itself to be unbiased. That's when I go "Come on man I know you aren't. Quit the pretence".
Also Indian media typically is reactionary. We don't particularly have nuanced discussions about the West because first and foremost we don't have our own statistics bureau that can create all sorts of indexes that the West creates out of thin air. Some of the Western Indexes are based on factual research but most of them aren't. And we just typically counter them in a reactionary manner. We do not invest efforts into actually coming up with actual statistics or at least indulge in counter-propaganda. That appetite simply does not exist. Many of these Western statistics, stories and news articles go unrebutted.
Like I gave an example of World Happiness Index. Let us take World Press Freedom Index. India ranks below Afghanistan in World Press Freedom Index. 11 spots behind Afghanistan. This is a total joke. Is the West actually trying to say that Taliban, which is ruling Afghanistan now, has more Press Freedom than India? You see how these nonsensical statistics go unchallenged? Because what would you even counter these with? It is that ridiculous! Surely if everything was so bad in India we wouldn't be a thriving and one of the fastest growing economies in the World today. We would all be on the streets rioting (like what happened in Sri Lanka) and storming Modi's residence. Most of it is hyperbole.