The Independent Swarajya Fact Checking Initiative

A majority of the audience for Swarajya originates from India, where every 6-9 months, set of elections are conducted on a state, district, and local level. These elections are instrumental in policy making and other national issues integral to the governance of the country as a whole.

Thus, we have many prominent personalities from the field of politics, economics, law, technology, business, and so on making statements, releasing reports and other publications pertaining to the elections or any other public policy. These include ministries at national and state level as well.

To serve the greater cause of journalism further, Swarajya has initiated an independent fact checking initiative. The focus of this initiative is to help the conventional average consumer of news with facts and to make them aware of the distortions that may have their origins in the statements or releases from any ministry, person holding an important position in the public or private sector, or an entity from the mainstream media.

The Swarajya Fact Check Initiative takes the following aspects into account for its operations.

1) The Swarajya Fact Check initiative, as a digital platform, is independent of any existing Swarajya digital properties, including the website and mobile applications. Thus, the readers are required to access two different websites when it comes to the main website offering opinions, reports, commentaries, analysis, etc. and the fact checking website which offers relevant corrections.

2) The initiative is only focussed on presenting facts to the people upon which they may form an opinion. In no manner is the fact check portal designed to offer any opinion to user based on the facts decoded, corrected, or otherwise stated.

3) The initiative does not correct any entity or individual for an opinion they might hold. However, if that opinion is based on a certain fact (assuming it is stated in the commentary where the opinion has been presented), we offer the reader a correct representation of the fact, attributing necessary sources.

4) In order to help our readers with clear facts and representations, more than one sources are attributed each time. The editorial team in amalgamation with the research team ensures that the attributions are to verified government or private resources, depending upon the context.

5) In order to avoid any conflict of interest between Swarajya and its fact checking initiative, a separate editorial team has been created. The members of this team are in no way operationally linked or involved with the Swarajya channel. This helps in formulation of opinion, representation of facts, and adds to the operational integrity of the entire process.

6) While Swarajya follows a certain editorial philosophy that may contradict with the ideologies and leanings of certain political, economic, social, or business entities and personalities, the fact check initiative in no way is constrained to any philosophy. The aim is to have as many facts corrected as possible, irrespective of their origins.

7) While the Swarajya magazine digital edition only offers 7 free articles for any unsubscribed reader, the articles on the Swarajya Fact Checking initiative, a portal independent of the main website, has no payment gateway or restrictions to the content, for we firmly believe that in the current atmosphere of increasing fake news, readers must be helped with as many fact checks as possible.

The Swarajya Fact Checking initiative also takes into requests from readers for certain commentaries, publications, reports, or any information in the public realm or social media that may require verification.

The contact page contains relevant details through which the readers can reach out to the fact checking team.