Since February 16, 1933, the Ukrainian authorities have forbidden that starvation be recorded as a cause of death, in order to hide the scale of the disaster. Only in March does Kosior admit in a report to Moscow that there is mass famine in Ukraine, but he gives assurances that the numbers are limited to the tens of thousands, mainly in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions. In fact, millions of Ukrainians are already swollen from hunger, eating plant roots or even resorting to cannibalism.
Stalin is fully informed of what is happening, but maintains the line that the dying have only themselves to blame: they are nationalists, kulaks, and enemies of collectivization, and therefore deserve no sympathy. Meanwhile, all public mention of the famine in the Soviet Union is strictly forbidden, so not a single Soviet newspaper reports it. Western media also prefer to sidestep the subject. The New York Times even writes that the rumors of famine in the Soviet Union are not credible.
— War and Punishment (Mikhail Zygar), Loc. 1573–80
NYT is and was a piece of shit.