US President Donald Trump has called on the New York Times newspaper, which won three Pulitzer Prizes on 4 May, to return the awards for biased coverage and falsifying sources. Late on Tuesday, Trump took to Twitter to slam the daily for its coverage of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign team and Russia. The probe ended in 2019 and found no conclusive evidence of collusion.
The New York Times has faced criticism in Russia over its alleged misreporting of several events, including the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. On 12 May, the newspaper published an article entitled "A Number Defies Propaganda: 1,700 Extra Deaths in Moscow," which claimed that the Moscow authorities were downplaying the number of deaths resulting from the coronavirus disease.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova rejected that Russia has manipulated the epidemiological statistics, and WHO Representative in Russia Melita Vujnovic confirmed that there has been no deliberate underestimation of COVID-19 mortality in the country.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has also slammed the newspaper for publishing false information, after allegations that Russia tried to keep UN findings into a hospital bombing in Syria secret. Zakharova called the newspaper’s findings "fake news."