Friday, 26 June 2020

Why Wikipedia calls OpIndia an Indian right-wing news portal?


I was reading news online and saw this new “SC Stays Multiple FIRs Filed By Mamata Banerjee Led Bengal Government Against OpIndia”.

https://swarajyamag.com/insta/sc-stays-multiple-firs-filed-by-mamata-banerjee-led-bengal-government-against-opindia


And when I search for OpIndia and found a Wikipedia page for OpIndia it says as below,


“OpIndia is an Indian right-wing news portal founded in 2014 by Rahul Raj and Kumar Kamal, which also claims to be a fact-checking website. OpIndia has published fake news on multiple occasions. In 2019, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) rejected OpIndia's application for accreditation as a fact checker”



OpIndia New Portal



Wikipedia says it as Indian right-wing news portal, but saying a news portals ideology is a subjective thing, how can anyone decide who is right wing and who is left wing. To find out if it’s a practice in case news media, I searched few others as well, and found nothing as such.


Then why such treatment against OpIndia, and I found another organization International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) rejected OpIndia's application for accreditation as a fact checker.

And IFCN page says this,

Fake news blacklist
In 2019, Poynter used various "fake news" databases (including those curated by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, Merrimack College, PolitiFact, and Snopes) to compile a list of over 515 news websites that it labeled "unreliable." Poynter called on advertisers to "blacklist" the sites on the list. The list included conservative news websites such as the Washington Examiner, The Washington Free Beacon, and The Daily Signal. After backlash, Poynter retracted the list, citing "weaknesses in the methodology." Poynter issued a statement, saying: "We regret that we failed to ensure that the data was rigorous before publication, and apologize for the confusion and agitation caused by its publication."

But other news portals in India has already made their mind and wrote articles calling Ops India a fake news portal. And it’s attacked by few left wing and other political parties. Editor, Nupur J Sharma and her family members were harassed by West Bengal Police by the orders of West Bengal State government.






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