On September 4, the New York Times did something it has a long and sordid history of doing: laundering extremely loaded and consequential “U.S. intelligence” claims without providing an ounce of skepticism — or evidence. The report, headlined “Iran Emerges as a Top Disinformation Threat in U.S. Presidential Race,” begins with fairly boilerplate hand wringing about foreign influence operations, followed by authors Steven Lee Myers,Tiffany Hsu and Farnaz Fassihi casually tossing out a government claim that, by implication, has the effect of smearing hundreds of thousands of student protesters:
“Across the United States this spring, Iran also used social media to stoke student-organized protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with operatives providing financial assistance and posing as students, according to American intelligence assessments.” ….more