It is quite strange that in a single weekend the New York Times would publish two stories that involve an ethically dubious appropriation of the truth, and yet here we are. My first post, “Worst Art Friend,” tried to expose how people with power and connections can tell stories that they may have pilfered from others as their own. This post tells the story of how it is not just fiction writers who do this. This story is about Rukmini Callimachi, the Times’s star terrorism reporter, who used her podcast “The Caliphate” to tell a story that was not true. It is also a story of the intimidation and harassment I had to endure when I went after the truth.
© 2024 Rafia Zakaria
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