OpIndia as on 2020-Mar-20
Type of site | News |
---|---|
Available in | English, Hindi |
Owner | Aadhyaasi Media And Content Services |
Website | www.opindia.com/about/ |
OpIndia is an Indian right-of-centre
[1] digital news media portal founded in 2014 by Kumar Kunal Kamal
and Rahul Raj. It publishes opinions, analyses of issues, news reports and fact-checks
articles. The current editor of OpIndia.com is Nupur J Sharma. Its extended team
includes staff writers in various cities and its registered and corporate office
is in New Delhi.
OpIndia is also available in Hindi here. [2] [4]
History
OpIndia was founded in 2014 by Rahul Raj and Kumar Kunal Kamal as a current affairs
and news website. In October 2016, it was acquired by Kovai Media Private Limited,
a Coimbatore-based company of TV Mohandas Pai, that also owns the right-leaning
magazine Swarajya.
[4]
In July 2018, it disassociated from the group and became a separate entity owned
by Aadhyaasi Media And Content Services, a private limited company formed in India
in the same year.
[2]
Ownership and Financing
Aadhyaasi Media And Content Services is partly funded by its founders, by Rahul Roushan and Nupur Sharma. Kaut Concepts, an independent private investment fund based in Delhi has also invested in the company. It invites micropayments from common readers and visitors too. [2]
Content
OpIndia claims it does not endorse any political party and is non-partisan in fact
checking, however, Sharma has clarified that they are not ideologically neutral
and are right leaning.
[3] [5]
OpIndia has accused multiple prominent media outlets like The Wall Street Journal,
BBC, NDTV, Scroll.in, The Wire, IFCN certified AltNews and others of spreading fake
news and leftist propaganda. Details are in the 'Fact Checks' section below.
In February 2019, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), an affiliate of
the Poynter Institute, rejected OpIndia's application to be accredited as a fact-checker.
While noting full compliance on a number of categories and not citing a single instance
of inaccuracy in OpIndia's fact checking, the IFCN controversially rejected the
application on grounds of political partisanship, a need for additional funding
details and the lack of certain hygiene factors such as solicitation of user fact
checks and a standard format for reporting corrections.
[3] The rejection disqualified
OpIndia for fact-checking contracts with web properties owned by Facebook and Google.
Sharma had rejected the IFCN assessment entirely and demanded that networks accept
of outlets with both right and left leaning bias so that the sum total of whats
fact checked is neutral. She added this was how it networks operated in United States.
[6]
Fact Checks
OpIndia's body of fact checks can be found here. It has cited numerous instances of incorrect reporting by mainstream media such as:
IFCN certified fact-checkers AltNews, Boom and others have cited instances of incorrect news being reported by OpIndia. [7] [8]
References
- "Arnab's Republic hints at mainstreaming right-wing opinion as a business". Business Standard India. an 27, 2017
- About Us-OpIndia Website OpIndia Retrieved Mar 17, 2020
- "Conclusions and recommendations on the application by OpIndia.com". International Fact-Checking Network. Archived from the original on 10 March 2019. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
- "Right vs Wrong: Arundhati Roy, Mohandas Pai funding fake news busters". Business Standard India. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
- "Busting fake news: Who funds whom?". Rediff. Apr 08, 2018
- "Can fact-checking emerge as big and viable business?". The Economic Times. May 07, 2019.
- AltNews Website on OpIndia AltNews. Retrieved Mar 20, 2020.
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