M.I.A vs. The New York Times

Thu 3rd Jun, 2010 in International News

M.I.A. has fired back at New York Times journalist Lynn Hirschberg after she published a defamatory article last week.

Hirschberg spends most of the article portraying Maya as a warmongering hypocrite devoted to a violent separatist movement. She often points out the luxurious and exotic food Maya orders, such as olive breads and truffle french fries, in what one reporter has dubbed the “Truffle Kerfuffle ”

Hirschberg questions Maya’s sincerity, saying, “It’s hard to know if she believes everything she says or if she knows that a loud noise will always attract a crowd.”

Maya responded by posting Hirschberg’s mobile phone number on her Twitter last Thursday. Hirschberg called the tweet “unethical” and “infuriating.” Days later, Maya tweeted the following: “TO MY FANS HERES THE TRUFFF, A SONG, AND THE LINKS TO WHAT REALLY MATTERS. http://neetrecordings.com/blog/ XXXO M.I.A”

On her record label’s blog, Maya posted unedited audio clips of the original interview and a new song called Haters.

The clips show discrepancies between what Hirschberg published and what Maya actually said. The song opens with the lyrics, “So you wanna hear about my politics / Yeah, I could show you things that could make you sick”

M.I.A. is no stranger to conflict. Her latest video Born Free has attracted a lot of media attention for being too violent, and recently she had some interesting things to say about a few popular websites: “Google and Facebook were developed by the CIA, and when you’re on there, you have to know that.”