About Us
FactChecker.in is India’s first dedicated Fact Check initiative. Since early 2013, we have been scrutinizing and researching for veracity and context, statements made by individuals in public life. As well as picking up on issues where we feel there is a strong need to examine data that is in public domain. In February 2014, we decided to spin it off into a separate website.
FactChecker.in is an initiative of The Spending & Policy Research Foundation which also runs www.indiaspend.org, India’s first data journalism initiative. We are located in Lower Parel in Mumbai and are registered as a Charitable Trust with the Charity Commissioner, Mumbai.
Methodology:
As a data journalism and policy research organisation, The Spending & Policy Research Foundation deals with issues, which should be—but usually are not—in the public domain, including: health, sanitation, law and justice, education, environment, employment, innovation, science, environment and disadvantaged groups. This is the process we follow in doing that:
Identify claims: As a fact checking initiative, we at Factchecker.in actively monitor news and social media platforms to pick claims/statements made by public figures or government reports. We also receive inputs from readers on respond@factchecker.in for any claim they come across.
Check for veracity/context: We refer to official data in the public domain like government databases, global think tanks, research firms and other trustworthy sources to help verify or debunk the claims. Often, claims are found to be true, but misleading as the context and historical perspective is missing. In such cases, we provide context to the claim in question.
Contact who claimed: Irrespective of the claim being true or false, we contact the person/institution who made the claim to ensure we present their perspective and in turn provide a more balanced as well as nuanced story to our readers.
Speak to experts: With data and facts, you also need experts to show how all of that translates on the ground and has a wider effect on people. FactChecker.in relies on the knowledge of experts in a particular area to give impartial and well-informed inputs for a well-rounded story.
Write & check: Once written, FactChecker ensures the article goes from under another set of eyes. When we are done poking holes and filling them, we publish the article. At FactChecker.in, we do not like adjectives, we do not like opinion. Emotion is not our thing. Data are. Facts are. Reportage is.
In case of any error, please contact us. For more details and our Correction Policy, go here
