From reporting on ground to using technology for verifying facts, we at The Quint, try to incorporate more than one source of information to fact-check a claim. We also rely heavily on data available on public domain to conduct fact-checks. We also apply this principle for reporting in general, and try to verify facts even in our opinion pieces before publishing

WebQoof has established itself as one of the leading disinformation buster in the industry. Launched in May 2017, it has built a dedicated audience who not only read our stories, but also, and most importantly, bring to our attention disinformation for us to expose.

Now, during election season, and as propaganda and hate-driven disinformation campaigns escalate, WebQoof has been on the forefront busting those and bringing the truth out in the open. The segment utilises multimedia - text, audio, video - to be more effective and in order to stand out from the rest.

The Quint has published a corrections policy and follows it diligently in accordance with the IFCN Code. Should you feel that The Quint has violated the IFCN Code, you may inform the IFCN using their complaints from here.

Raghav Bahl, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Raghav Bahl is a media entrepreneur and investor. In addition to founding and scaling Network18, India’s leading media group, Raghav has seeded moneycontrol.com, bookmyshow.com, firstpost.com, yatra.com, among others.

Raghav started making television news capsules while still reading Economics at St Stephen’s. After an MBA at FMS Delhi, Raghav's career followed an obvious trajectory, beginning as a Management Consultant at AF Ferguson, followed by a stint at Amex. But news was a natural home for him, and he quit the cushy comforts of international banking and went on to set up Network18, among India’s top media houses. Raghav has also managed long and successful partnerships with some of the world’s leading media brands: CNBC, Viacom, BBC, Star TV, A&E, Time Warner, & Forbes.

As the audience is increasingly shifting out of television and into digital media, Raghav is now focused on scaling an innovative, digital media business – straddling content, tech, and distribution. Raghav founded Quint Digital Media Limited in 2015.

Ritu Kapur, Co-Founder and CEO

Ritu Kapur is the co-founder and CEO of The Quint, an independent news website in India. She has driven digital innovation, from The Quint's Innovation Lab to launching a fact-checking initiative, 'WebQoof' – that crowdsources and busts fake news.

Ritu has also strived to provide multiple platforms for free speech, like The Quint's citizen journalism initiative 'My Report', 'Talking Stalking' – a campaign to change the laws to make stalking a non-bailable offence and 'Me The Change' – that focuses on the rights of young women in India.

Ritu spent over two decades in broadcast as the founder of Network18, where she won awards for a docudrama series 'Bhanwar' and for 'The Citizen Journalist' show, among others. At Network18, she led programming on History TV18 and was Features Editor at CNN IBN, before she exited the company to launch The Quint.

She is on the advisory board of Oxford University’s Reuters Institute of Journalism, the World Editor's Forum at WAN IFRA and Future News Worldwide. Ritu has been recognised by Outlook Business as 'Woman of Worth 2017 – The Newsmaker.'

We have some of the best minds in the industry, who have honed their craft for years, and today, are leading a fearless newsroom. They work with reporters, news desk writers, fact-checkers, and video producers to ensure we fulfil our commitment of fearless and transparent journalism.

Sanjay Pugalia, President and Editorial Director

Rohit Khanna, Managing Editor

Shelly Walia, Executive Editor

Nishtha Gautam, Editor, OpEd

Poonam Agarwal, Editor Investigation

Aditya Menon, Associate Editor

Riniki Sanyal, Associate Editor

Eshwar Gole, Associate Editor

Monica Sarup, Senior Editor, Research

Vaishali Sood, Editor – Health

Vakasha Sachdev, Associate Editor, Legal

Namita Handa Jolly, Editor, My Report

Medha Chakrabartty, Associate Editor, Audience Engagement

Kritika Goel works as a multimedia journalist at The Quint and relies on multimedia elements to narrate stories. She has a deep rooted interest in politics and development issues.

Email: kritika.goel@thequint.com

Divya Chandra is a multimedia journalist at The Quint. She has a keen interest in education related stories. She enjoys debunking viral videos, images and text and likes to go beyond the obvious.

Email: divya.chandra@thequint.com

Himanshi Dahiya is multimedia journalist with keen interest in understanding political, social and cultural dynamics of the society. A photographer on the run, she manages to capture a story or two when not in the newsroom.

Email: himanshi.dahiya@thequint.com

A student of literature and mass communication, Sonal Gupta seeks to turn the thoughts inside her head into coherent words. Running on caffeine and memes, her favourite part of fact-checking is uncovering local stories.

Email: sonal.gupta@thequint.com

Abhilash works as multimedia journalist and fact-checker. He is currently pursuing a year-long fellowship with Facebook, that focuses on tackling health misinformation around COVID-19.

Email: abhilash.mallick@thequint.com

Though headquartered in New Delhi, The Quint has bureaus across the country – in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Chennai. This enables us to identify local stories and allows us to do ground fact-checks, that originate from remote corners of the country.

Suresh Mathew – Bureau Chief Mumbai

Arun Dev – Bureau Chief, Bengaluru

Ishadrita Lahiri – Senior Correspondent, Kolkata

Smitha TK – Senior Correspondent, Chennai

We have a team of entertainment reporters and desk writers in Mumbai, who work in tandem with the 'WebQoof' team, to make sure what reaches you, is just verified news.

We have a team of nine reporters who specialise in investigative and multimedia ground reporting – fact-checking from the ground is an important aspect of their work. Their beats range from caste, communalism, gender to education, cyber policy, the law, and civic issues. Among them Aishwarya Iyer, Asmita Nandy, Sushovan Sarkar, Anthony Rozario, Shadab Moizee, Kaushiky Kashyap, Ankita Sinha, Vaibhav Palnitkar and Mythreyee Ramesh. The 'My Report' team, which focuses on citizen journalism, has two reporters. Our health team has three reporters, led by a senior editor. This team also has a major focus on fact-checking and busting myths being circulated on health issues, treatments, and cures.

Small but an efficient team of four copyeditors and six desk reporters. These news mavericks churn out news stories, 24x7.

Has six members who works across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Telegram as audience engagement specialists. They work round the clock, along with the 'WebQoof' team, to identify fake news online.

By the way, if your family WhatsApp group is buzzing with those fake forwards, you can send it our 'WebQoof' team at 9643651818 and we will send back fact-checked, credible content.

VIDEO TEAM
Our super cool team of video editors focuses on content ranging from explainers, stand-ups, news videos, debunking videos, and a lot more.

Tridip Kanti Mandal – Sr Creative Director

Divya Talwar – Sr Creative Director

Padmini Vaidyanathan – Sr Creative Director

Our Video team comprises 12 VT editors, three camerapersons and four producers.

Our graphics team has six fabulous illustrators

PODCAST TEAM
Fabeha Syed – Multimedia Producer

Shorbori Purkhayastha – Sr Producer Podcast

The process of fact-checking ranges from ground reporting, to calling various stakeholders and authorities to verify facts, reverse searches and analysing various parts of a message for a detailed response.

We have sent our reporters on the ground many times to verify news stories and thus preventing misinformation from spreading. One of the examples was at the time of the Kathua rape case. Our reporter traveled to Kathua, J&K to verify bring out the facts. We also rely on personal interaction with concerned parties to verify messages pertaining to them. For instance: Various messages about government schemes – when the details are not available on government websites – we write/call the Ministry for clarification.

Since the messages that we receive range from text messages to videos, the way we handle it differs.

Some pictures can be identified that they have been tampered with by doing a simple google reverse search. As the result shows similar images, they can be identified if they are fake or not. Secondly, closer look at photographs help in analysing aspects of the picture which reveal details that help in checking the authenticity of the image. For instance: Details in pictures like billboards, location play a role in verifying.

Verifying videos can be tricky but both the audio and the video, play a role in verifying it. For instance: A message was circulating on social media that claimed that a raid was conducted on a dhaba near Delhi and the condition of the kitchen was extremely poor and unhygienic. But on watching the video we found it to be false. What helped us verify it was: The audio. People in the video were talking in Punjabi while the video was claimed to be of Haryana. Afterwards, using the language as a clue, we found the same video online. It was not just from a different location but was also quite old.

For texts we take the cues and look for the information online then further analyse the source and verifying the piece bit by bit.

There are different methodologies adopted for different stories but we maintain a policy of not just relying, blindly, on popular sources of information until we ourselves are sure about the information that we put forward for our readers.

This is the link to our 'WebQoof' section, where we stack all the stories that we debunk: https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof

To err is after all human! Own up to any error quickly and completely. Be transparent when correcting a factual error. Therefore, as a professional organization, while our endeavour is to work with utmost flawlessness and accuracy, we are also mindful of the fact that mistakes need to be corrected promptly. Corrections, clarifications, and retractions should be noted online and printed in the next available issue, in a regular, consistent space that is easy for the reader to find in the front of the publication or, in the case of a Web site, the home page.

Serious factual errors should be admitted and corrected at the first opportunity, subject to legal advice where appropriate. No Team Member is allowed to commit the Company to an admission of error, correction, or apology without reference to the Department Head. The Department Head along with the Company lawyers must be consulted about the wording of corrections and clarifications to determine their suitability.

It is our policy to correct significant errors as soon as possible. Any amendment should be notified at the bottom of an article. If a retraction is necessary, this should be accompanied by an explanation as to why this was felt to be necessary, subject to the approval and discretion of the Editor-in-Chief and senior editors."

You can reach us at editor@thequint.com.

You can contact The Quint's fact-checkers 'Team WebQoof' at webqoof@thequint.com or through our Facebook and Twitter pages.