Fantasy Journalism: Has Western Media underestimated a Changing World Order
Did Western journalists and most powerful media outlets consider BRICS a failure? How does the Western media report on BRICS, as though it is an insignificant bloc with little influence on the emerging global order? One has to ask whether this persistent tendency to downplay BRICS is accidental or intentional. When reporting on geopolitical rivals, does the Western media sometimes close its eyes not only to uncomfortable realities, but also to the growing economic and political weight of those it regards as adversaries? But the key question for journalism is not if Western reporters wished for BRICS to fail. The question that should be asked is whether Western media outlets have given sufficient attention to BRICS. When they have whether their focus has tended to highlights the conflicts and disagreements among its members. Such a perspective may focus heavily on the challenges BRICS countries face in deepening cooperation while giving less attention to the broader shifts taking place in the global balance of power. This distinction is important.
Before New Delhi, scepticism on BRICS was unsurprising. Expanding BRICS Members caused complications. India and China remain competitors. Iran, and the United Arab Emirates have different priorities. So does Russia and the West. Members also have differences on security, economics, and relations with America. All are good stories and deserve public attention. But they reinforce the persistent belief that BRICS is permanently divided and cannot be important. Is this perception merely an illusion or a political fantasy, or does it reflect a more systematic pattern in Western media coverage? The question is not whether this framing is deliberate, but whether it has become habitual. Does the tendency to emphasise divisions, tensions and contradictions within BRICS prevent Western audiences from seeing the broader significance of the bloc's development? Let us see what Western media covers on BRCS in India. The New York Times wrote on the vast size of the group and the divisions caused by war and competing interests. They recognised BRICS represents over half the world's population and a major part of the economy, but doubted members could set joint goals. Other articles focused on the competition between India and China for influence in the developing world and leadership of BRICS. On the first day of the summit, they wrote that there was little expectation that BRICS would fill the vacuum on global leadership and quoted an analyst calling the group, "wildly underperforming." This is the best standard to review the result of the summit.
The BBC's post-summit analysis is perhaps the clearest example. Its headline itself foregrounds “divisions.” The article begins by describing the BRICS countries as “hardly natural allies” and quickly moves to India-China border conflict and Iran-UAE confrontation. Later, it stresses how difficult it was for members to agree on what a new global order should look like. The choice of headline itself illustrates the emphasis on division: ‘Iran war reshapes BRICS ties but also exposes divisions.’ But there is an important counterpoint: the BBC also says India's ability to bring these leaders together was itself a significant diplomatic achievement. It acknowledges that India succeeded in obtaining the New Delhi Declaration despite serious disagreements and created a forum in which rivals could meet. The WSJ's coverage surrounding the summit concentrated strongly on the rapprochement between India and China. Its framing was essentially that changing US relationships were bringing two longstanding Asian rivals closer together. It placed the history of the deadly India-China border confrontation prominently within that story.
Therefore, Western media coverage of the 2026 BRICS Summit in New Delhi raises an important question about how the changing global order is being represented. Several influential Western news organisations s stated above placed considerable emphasis on divisions within BRICS, including tensions between India and China, differences between Iran and the UAE, and difficulties in reaching consensus on major geopolitical conflicts. The important question, therefore, is not whether Western reporting was simply “positive” or “negative” towards BRICS. Rather, it is whether Western media disproportionately framed the New Delhi summit through conflict, division and institutional weakness. At the same time giving comparatively less prominence to BRICS expansion, and the gradual redistribution of influence within the international system
New Delhi did not miraculously achieve unanimity across BRICS. Internal disputes also did not finally break the union. Members were able to draft and adopt a joint declaration despite intense geopolitics. Reuters documented the discrepancies while making note of the achievement of consensus. Significantly, the Financial Times described the summit as displaying rare ‘unity’ amid heightened geopolitical tensions. This, however, does not justify the pre-summit skepticism. Journalism's job is to highlight challenges, conflicts and issues. It, however, raises an interesting issue regarding framing. Why is the existence of BRICS questioned when the only evidence provided is internal BRICS discrepancies? Disagreements when discussed in the West are fairly common. Members of the European Union have constant, intense and prolonged discussions on trade, migration, defense, foreign policy, and China-related issues. Disagreements within NATO are largely on the same issues but add Russia and strategic issues. The contrast raises an uncomfortable question: why is disagreement treated as normal politics within Western institutions, but so readily interpreted as evidence of dysfunction within BRICS?
Positive assessments were present, but they often competed with a more persistent narrative of division and institutional weakness. Therefore, the author of this article appeal to audiences in India and across parts of the Global South to ask a serious question and that is “why international events should always be interpreted through Washington, London or Brussels.” BRICS is not NATO. It has no collective-defence commitment. It is not the European Union and does not seek supranational government. It has no common foreign policy. It brings together democracies, monarchies and authoritarian political systems. If BRICS were supposed to become an ideological alliance, those contradictions might indeed prove fatal. But what if ideological uniformity was never the point? What increasingly connects BRICS countries is dissatisfaction with aspects of an international system in which the distribution of institutional authority has not kept pace with the distribution of population and economic power. Their interests converge around demands for greater representation in global governance, reform of international institutions and increased capacity to trade without excessive dependence on financial structures controlled elsewhere.
Seen from Washington or London, BRICS may appear primarily as a challenge to an established order. Seen from New Delhi, Brazil, Jakarta, Johannesburg or Addis Ababa, it can look very different: an attempt to obtain greater influence within an international system whose principal institutions were created when most of developing world possessed considerably less economic power. In many cases, was still emerging from colonialism. Media framing matters because journalism does more than report facts. It decides which facts appear in the headline, which conflicts become the organising narrative and whose perspective provides the starting point. A newspaper can accurately report every disagreement within BRICS and still leave its readers with an incomplete understanding of why BRICS matters. For decades, global journalism has operated within an information system dominated by institutions headquartered in a handful of Western cities. Reuters and the BBC in London, CNN in the United States, The New York Times in New York and the Financial Times in London possess enormous international reach and influence.
The lesson is not that “Western media lied.” The issue is more subtle. Parts of the Western media may have confused disagreement with weakness, and weakness with irrelevance. BRICS remains divided, but the New Delhi summit suggests that its members can still cooperate around shared interests. It has not replaced the G7, the Global South has not replaced the West, and Western economic and technological power remains formidable. But BRICS may be divided, argumentative and imperfect without being irrelevant. The challenge for Western journalism is neither to celebrate BRICS nor to fear it, but to see it clearly. If the world is changing, journalism cannot understand that change while looking at it through yesterday’s map