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Our team comprises of highly committed journalists who are dedicated to busting fake news stories. The team is well versed with all state-of-the-art verification tools. The team works round the clock to make sure that no fake news corrupts the thoughts of innocent readers. Our goal is to create a clean and safe social and political environment to help people make unbiased decisions.
VishvasNews team members have not, over the past year, spoken out on major political issues or other matters. Nor have they advocated for any political party, candidate or cause, save for the cause of transparency and accuracy in public debate.
We fully comply with Newsroom Diversity. We are diverse in gender, ages, skills and even religious beliefs.
Position: Editor-in-Chief and Executive President
About: Rajesh Upadhyay is a seasoned journalist and researcher with over 30 years of experience. With expertise spanning both digital and print media, he has been instrumental in shaping and establishing media teams across leading organisations. Before joining the Dainik Jagran group, he contributed to the growth of Dainik Bhaskar and Hindustan Times, where he played a pivotal role in developing and establishing digital and print teams. Currently, he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Ddigital and Executive President at Jagran, leading fact-checking and media literacy for IFCN-signatory Vishvas News. Rajesh holds a postgraduate degree in journalism and mass communication and is an alumnus of the Editorial Development Program at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indore. He is also a certified Google News Initiative fact-checking and verification trainer with, various international certifications in investigative reporting, media literacy, and public policy. Rajesh has also been invited as an expert speaker at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), MICA, and IIM Indore.
Qualification: Postgraduate in Journalism and Mass Communication and Alumnus of the Editorial Development Program, IIM Indore.
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Professional Development: Rajesh has participated in numerous international conferences on journalism, fact-checking, and media literacy organiszed by leading institutions including the IFCN (Global fact), Google News Initiative (GNI), Meta, Crowdtangle, ICFJ, INMA Congress, WAN- IFRA, and the Global Hindi Excellence Summit, Singapore.
Position: Executive Editor
About: Jatin is a journalist with over 27 years of experience across different media — newspapers, magazines, TV and digital — and with the country’s leading news brands: Jagran group, Times group, India Today, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, Star News and NDTV. He is a Chevening Fellow 2016-17 and Knight International Journalism Fellow with the ICFJ Washington DC for 2018-19. He heads the fact-checking team at Vishvas News. He has conducted more than 50 training sessions in fact-checking, media literacy and different aspects of journalism.
Qualification: MA (Mass Communication), PG Journalism from the Asian College of Journalism, BA Economics (Hons), LLB, PGD in Cyber Laws from NALSAR and SAJP from University of Westminster, London.
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Position: Senior Editor and Assistant General Manager
About: Urvashi is a Senior Editor at Jagran New Media. She is also part of the Google News Initiative India training network and a highly regarded fact-checking and media literacy trainer. Her contributions to journalism have earned her several accolades, notably the esteemed ’40 Under 40 in English Journalism’ award. She was part of a fellowship focusing on cross-border issues of mutual concern from the East-West Center. She is a fact-checker and leads the flagship, internationally awarded, media literacy series ‘Sach Ke Sathi’ at Vishvas News.
Qualification: She is a post-graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication and holds another postgraduate degree in Commerce. She has also successfully completed a program on ‘Strategies for Increasing Reach & Engagement of Journalism’ from The Knight Center for Journalism at the University of Texas.
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Correction
1: May 31, 2020
The story done by a team member (Employee ID PN0059) was updated on May 31 to remove an unnecessary paragraph which was not required in the story.
https://www.vishvasnews.com/english/health/fact-check-no-who-didnt-warn-against-consuming-cabbage-to-prevent-covid-19/
https://www.vishvasnews.com/english/health/fact-check-no-mustard-oil-cannot-cure-coronavirus-however-it-has-certain-health-benefits/
https://www.vishvasnews.com/english/health/fact-check-who-didnt-issue-proposal-for-extending-lockdowns-to-control-covid-19-fake-post-getting-viral-2/
Position: Associate Editor
About: Ashish is a Fact-checker with Vishvas News. He has over 18 years of experience in Digital and Print Media. He has earlier worked with TV18 Group in Mumbai and the Dainik Bhaskar Group in Bhopal. He has extensive experience in digital journalism and was earlier part of the teams at bhaskar.com and India Today Group’s website, Lallantop. Ashish also serves as a trainer for fact-checking and media literacy initiatives. In his capacity as a trainer for Vishvas News’ media literacy campaign ‘Sach Ke Sathi,’ he imparts training sessions across various cities in the country. He specialises in political fact-checks and handling social media. In addition to scrutinising political content, Ashish dedicates his expertise to investigating misinformation surrounding social issues.
Qualification: Ashish did his post graduation in Journalism from Makhanlal Chaturvedi National Journalism University, Bhopal and is a graduate of the Rajasthan University, Jaipur.
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Correction
1: July 29, 2018
Vishvas News noticed a strike on Vishvas News Facebook Page on 29th July at 8.30 PM. It happened because Vishvas News Team member (Emp ID: PN0043) mistakenly rated our own story in Facebook dashboard. He had submitted Vishvas News’ fact-checked reference article in related content category. As a result, Vishvas News’s Facebook page received a strike. Later, the rating was corrected by him.
This was the story which was by mistake rated as false – https://www.vishvasnews.com/health/fact-check-post-claiming-caripill-cures-dengue-in-48-hours-is-misleading-2/
2: May 7, 2020
Another Team member (Employee ID PN0058) had done a story on a viral video which claimed that it was Rishi Kapoor’s last video in which he was listening and praising a young man in the hospital where the actor was admitted. Once the story was done, the first team member (Employee ID PN0043), while rating the video in Facebook dashboard, had rated it with the option – ‘Video only’. Later, the rating was changed to the option – ‘Video with Text Together’.
https://www.vishvasnews.com/urdu/viral/fact-check-no-this-not-the-last-video-of-rishi-kapoor-viral-claim-is-fake/
3: May 31, 2020
The story done by team member (Employee ID PN0043) was updated on May 31 to remove an unnecessary paragraph which was not required in the story.
https://www.vishvasnews.com/politics/fact-check-nepals-old-photo-goes-viral-in-the-name-of-india-this-photo-has-no-relation-with-lockdown/
4: June 4, 2020
Team Vishvas News Member (Employee ID PN0043) had done an article in which it was wrongly mentioned that Congress MLA has been suspended by the party. The story was corrected with the correct information and a disclaimer on that was also put in the story.
https://www.vishvasnews.com/politics/fact-check-aditi-singh-a-suspeneded-mla-from-congress-did-not-join-bjp-with-5-mlas-viral-post-is-fake/
5: December 18, 2020
The story done by team member (Employee ID PN0043) was updated on 18th Dec 2020 to remove an unnecessary paragraph which was not required in the story.
https://www.vishvasnews.com/politics/fake-order-of-tourism-ministry-viral/
https://www.vishvasnews.com/society/fact-check-no-corona-virus-in-fish-in-madhya-pradesh/
Position: Associate Editor
About: Abhishek is an Associate Editor at Jagran New Media and is associated with Vishvas News as a fact-checker. He has over 13 years of experience in journalism. He had previously worked with Press Trust of India, Business Standard, The Economic Times, Catch News (Rajsthan Patrika), and News Nation Digital. Abhishek is also a certified Google News Initiative (GNI) fact-checking and news verification trainer. He has been working as a trainer at ‘Sach ke Sathi’, JNM’s internationally awarded media literacy initiative. He also has expertise in data analysis and has spent half of his career as a business journalist.
Qualification: Postgraduate in Journalism and Mass Communication from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi. Graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication from Delhi University.
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Correction
1: Sept 16, 2019
Vishvas News received a claim on a story which was done on Sept 14 by Vishvas News Team member (Emp ID: PN0041)). Below is the story URL
Vishvas News received a mail from the admin of ‘Fir Ek Bar Modi Sarkar’ Facebook page claiming the rating given on its post by Vishvas News was incorrect. The author of the story didn’t get a required quote from Youth Congress. As per the IFCN guidelines and the SOP, Vishvas News made necessary correction in the story and changed the rating of the Facebook post from False to True.
2: December 18, 2020
The story done by team member (Employee ID PN0043) was updated on 18th Dec 2020 to remove an unnecessary paragraph which was not required in the story.
Position: Deputy Editor
About: As Deputy Editor, Pallavi specialises in political, health, education and employment related fact checks. With over 13 years of experience in the digital medium, she has previously worked in mainstream media organisations such as NDTV, India Today and IANS.
Qualification: Pallavi holds a postgraduate degree in Journalism and Mass Communication, complemented by a Diploma in Journalism.
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Correction
1: July 03, 2019
Vishvas News Team member (Employee ID- PN0065) did a fact-check story on a viral post on Facebook in which an image of an ice cream vendor was used with the claim — ‘गंगा घाट कोतवाली क्षेत्र के अंतर्गत कोतवाली के सामने आइसक्रीम बेचने वाले #राकेश (#दलित) को #जयश्रीराम ना कहने पर #मुसलमान समझकर #भगवागुंडों ने मारा पीटा।”.
He debunked the false claim made in the Facebook post and published a story on the facts. Later, another team member (Employee ID- PN0046) rated the same users’ post on Facebook.
Below was the link of the story team created to debunk the false claim made by the user in his Facebook post – https://www.vishvasnews.com/society/fact-check-ice-cream-vendors-image-viral-with-fake-claim/
Later, Team member with Emp ID – PN0046 found that the same images were being used with similar false claims by few other users as well on Facebook. The post was mistakenly rated as false which had the same image but correct description, “गंगा घाट कोतवाली क्षेत्र के अंतर्गत कोतवाली के सामने आइसक्रीम बेचने वाले को मारा पीटा पैसे छीनने का आरोप”. The Facebook page owner raised the issue with us and the required correction in the rating of the post was made following the guidelines and our correction policy.
2: May 31, 2020
The story done by a team member (Employee ID PN0046) was updated on May 31 to remove an unnecessary paragraph which was not required in the story.
https://www.vishvasnews.com/politics/fact-check-no-labour-ministry-is-not-giving-rs-1-2-lakh-to-labourers-who-worked-between-1990-2020/
Position: Deputy Editor
About: Sharad is an experienced journalist with more than 17 years in the print and digital media. He has worked with Dainik Bhaskar, Hindustan, Dainik Janwani, Amar Ujala and Rajasthan Patrika in the past.
Qualification: Post Graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication.
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Correction
1: December 12, 2022
A story by a member of Vishvas News was updated on December 12, 2022. In this, a paragraph was removed, which was not needed in that story.
Position: Deputy Editor
About: :Devika is a fact-checker and a Media Literacy Trainer for Sach Ke Sathi with Vishvas News at Jagran New Media. With an extensive experience of 15 years in reputed media organisations like Zee News, Dainik Bhaskar, News Nation, Microsoft News and Indo-American newspaper India West (earlier India Journal in Los Angeles) based in California, Devika has used her knack for adaptive technology to work on credible and progressive journalism. She is also part of the Research Assessment Panel (AI Observatory) of ‘The Forum on Information and Democracy’ and is a mentor for the 2024 Responsible Tech Mentorship Program by ‘All Tech Is Human’.
Qualification:She holds a Masters in Broadcast Journalism from Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism, Bhopal, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in ‘Artificial Intelligence and Indian Journalism’ from Amity University, Noida.
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Position: Chief Sub Editor
About: Umam has developed her expertise in fact-checking and debunking claims pertaining to the Middle East region and the Indian neighbourhood. She has more than six years’ experience in journalism. She has worked previously with Network18 and is a certified Google News Initiative Trainer and a Media Literacy trainer for ‘Sach ke Sathi.’
Qualification: She is a mass communications graduate and also holds a Bachelor of English (Hons) degree from Jamia Millia Islamia She has completed a Certificate in ‘Translation Proficiency in English’ from JMI.
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Correction
1. Jan 16, 2020
On January 6, Vishvas News Team’s Fact Checker (Employee ID PN0058) had done a fact check story on the viral 3D image of Australian map showing the intensity of bushfire. The image was also going viral with a fake claim saying it was taken from a NASA satellite. The Fact chcker who was working on the story (Employee ID PN0058) had done the investigation properly following all the guidelines and got a quote from the creator of the 3D image who confirmed that the image was produced using the bushfire data provided by NASA. Below is the URL of the Vishvas News story-
https://www.vishvasnews.com/
Vishvas News works as the Third-Party Fact Check Partner with Facebook. If the viral posts are takem from Facebook, Vishvas News (after the completion of fact checking process) rates the post as – False, True, Misleading on the basis of the fact-check outcome in the story. There is a separate guideline to follow to rate the posts for Facebook, as some images are correct but the claims with the images are either fake or misleading, and sometimes both images and the claims are incorrect. In these scenarios Vishvas News goes with the options – either ‘On single post’ or ‘identical content’ optons. In the above story, the image was absolutely fine in the Facebook post, but the description used with the image was incorrect, and the same was mentioned properly in the story done by the fact checker author. But, during the story rating process, the author marked the story as ‘identical content’. As a result, some Facebook users received message of ‘fake image fact-checked by an Independent fact-checker’ even if they used the correct description with the image. Vishvas News was not able to correct the rating due to a technical issue which we faced because the user mentioned in Vishvas News story had deleted his Facebook post. It took a week day time to resolve the technical issue, and it was fixed on Jan 15.
Vishvas News received 13 appeal mails by different Facebook users due the ‘identical content’ issue. All of them had used the image with the correct description with the image but received ‘fake image’ message due to the technical glitch. Vishvas News contacted all of them in separate mails and explained the issue on January 9. And, once the issue was resolved, Vishvas News again sent a confirmation mail to all of them.
The Vishvas News fact checker (Employee ID PN0058), who rated the post with incorrect option, was asked to explain (why it happened) in an official mail and the required action was taken against her as per the guidelines and policy after her response.
2. June 4, 2020, Vishvas News Team’s Fact Checker (Employee ID PN0058) did a story on a video in which it was claimed that there are ongoing protests in Amritsar on the demand of Khalistan. In our investigation, we found that the video is from 2016 and nowadays there is no such Protest happening there. Following our SOP, we published the news, but on the same day we found that the second part of the video is not from 2016 but from the 2012 Protest. However, the video is both old and fake. The news was updated the same day with the new Information.
Position: Chief Sub Editor
About: Pragya is a Chief Sub Editor and fact-checker with Vishvas News. Her specialisation is fact checking social misinformation. She has experience of around five years in the digital media. Before joining Vishvas News, Pragya had worked with NewsChecker, Patrika, Hindustan Samachar and Deshbandhu. She has also been working as a trainer at ‘Sach ke Sathi’ which is the media literacy campaign.
Qualification: She is a Post Graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication.
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Correction
1: January 23, 2023
A story by a member of Vishvas News was updated on December 23, 2023. In this, a paragraph was removed, which was not needed in that story. Another paragraph was added in place of the existing paragraph.
Position: Senior Sub Editor
About: Jyoti is a Senior Sub Editor and Fact Checker with Vishvas News. Her Specialisation is fact-checking in Punjabi and claims pertaining to Punjab politics, scams and entertainment misinformation. She has experience of around six years in the digital media. She has previously worked with News Flash Online as a Content writer, Josh Talks and Likee APP.
Qualification: Post Graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication.
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