www.vishvas.news – the fact-check and news verification portal of Jagran New Media, which is the digital wing of Jagran Prakashan Ltd, is now a Fact Checking partner with Facebook. www.vishvas.news is India’s first dedicated Hindi fact-check and news verification portal which is certified by International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). www.vishvas.news is among the select 62 prestigious global media portal that has received this certification from the Poynter Institute.
The site is among the seven IFCN certified partners that Facebook works with, under its third-party fact-checking program in India. The basic objective of www.vishvas.news is to check the authenticity of any news or information on the basis of facts without any fear or favour. The news stories covered on Vishvas.news aims to curb fake news and helps spread awareness among common man about the difference between real and fake.
www.vishvas.news has a dedicated editorial team to identify, verify and authenticate news. A Google News Initiative trained Editor and the team follow a policy of non-partisanship and fairness in this fact-checking and verification exercise. The site was recently certified by International Fact-Checking Network – a non-partisan Fact-Checking Network unit of the Poynter Institute which is dedicated to bringing together fact-checkers from around the world. IFCN certification has been awarded to www.vishvas.news following a rigorous evaluation process conducted by external assessors. The reviewers evaluated the application on 12 aspects, including non-partisanship and fairness, transparency of sources, transparency of funding and organization, transparency of methodology, and an open and honest correction policy.
Commenting on this development, Mr Bharat Gupta – CEO, Jagran New Media, said “As a Media Group, while one aspect of our responsibility is producing original, relevant and factual content that is trustworthy, with changing times, the other aspect of our responsibility is to analyse social conversations, isolate concerning content and verify the same with factual information to produce factual, unbiased and non-partisan content, so that our users are served only the most trustworthy information. In the growing age of social media, the latter is an even bigger responsibility for us. I am happy to partner with Facebook to tackle this challenge.”
The Editor-In-Chief, Jagran New Media, Rajesh Upadhyay, said: “In the past few years, fake news has become a major challenge for media houses worldwide. The consequences are all the more worrying for India as people from within the media industry fall prey to misinformation. Keeping in view the magnitude of this challenge, we have trained our team rigorously on fact-checking and news verification and have launched www.vishvas.news. Our motivation for launching this initiative stems from our commitment to debunking fake news. I appreciate that our efforts have been certified and recognized by the reputed international organization – International Fact Checking Network (IFCN) and happy to partner with Facebook.”