On 18th November 2022, the leftist propaganda website The Wire published an article in the name of Nikhil Pahwa – the founder of Medianama. The website also tagged him in the tweet in which it shared the said article. However, Nikhil Pahwa responded to the tweet by saying that he never wrote the article ‘The Wire’ published in his name.
The article titled ‘Meta Layoffs, H-1B and the Life of Immigrant Labour’ was published on The Wire on 18th November 2022 at around 5:50 pm. This article explores the “difficult, stressful time ahead of the immigrant employees who lost their jobs with Meta”, claims The Wire. The portal tagged Nikhil Pahwa in a Twitter post in which the article was shared. The Wire wrote in a tweet, “The ripple effects of the Meta layoffs could be ghastly, especially for the many workers who’ve depended on employment with Meta for their US visas. Nikhil Pahwa writes for Future Tense Now.”
It is notable that a collaboration between Slate, New America, and Arizona State University called Future Tense explores new technology, public policy, and society. The Wire mentioned this at the end of the article. The article was actually written by Nitish Pahwa on the same issue which was published by Slate. It is titled, ‘Where Will the Thousands of Laid-Off Tech Workers Go?’.
Within minutes of The Wire tweeting the article and tagging Nikhil Pahwa in the tweet as the author, Nikhil Pahwa lashed out at the portal. He tweeted, “What the hell! I never wrote this. Dear The Wire, Can you please do your due diligence before you publicly attribute something to someone? Please remove this tweet and please remove any attribution to my Twitter handle or me.”
‘The Wire’ deleted the tweet after this and also changed the name of the author of that article on their website.
An earlier version of this article erroneously attributed the byline to @nixxin instead of @pahwa_nitish.
— The Wire (@thewire_in) November 18, 2022
The error is regretted. https://t.co/cLCISRVEPY
They also added a note below the article saying, “An earlier version of this article erroneously attributed the byline to Nikhil Pahwa instead of Nitish Pahwa.” They also expressed regret for the error, and tagged the correct author on Twitter this time.
