Alt News - Bias and Credibility - Media Bias/Fact Check

LEFT BIAS

These media sources are moderate to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports, and omit information reporting that may damage liberal causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy. See all Left Bias sources.

Overall, we rate Alt News Left Biased based on story (fact check) selection that favors the Left and High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing of information and a clean fact check record, as well as being referenced by IFCN fact-checkers.

Detailed Report

Bias Rating: LEFT
Factual Reporting: HIGH
Country: India
MBFC’s Country Freedom Rating: MODERATE FREEDOM
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: HIGH CREDIBILITY

History

Founded in 2017, Alt News is a fact-checking website from India. The co-founder is Pratik Sinha, and the other founder is not known. According to their about page, Alt News is “committed to debunking misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information.” Alt News will provide readers with “political fact-checking, debunking social media rumors and Mainstream media misinformation and bias.” Further, according to a bio of Pratik Sinha, he is a software engineer and member of Jan Sangharsh Manch, a civil liberties organization based in Ahmedabad.

Read our report on how Government influences media in India.

Funded by / Ownership

According to their Editorial Team page, Pratik Sinha is the co-founder and editor of Alt News that operates under the aegis of Pravda Media Foundation. AltNews.in is funded through donations and grants. They also provide a Transparency of Funding page.

Analysis / Bias

Alt News provides a methodology that explains how they fact check and their methods. According to First Post, Alt News describes its purpose as to “act as an antidote to the right-wing propagandists that have established themselves in the mainstream media.”

In review, Alt News primarily fact checks videos to see if they are real and properly labeled to the source. In general, they fact-check claims that would appeal most to those who lean left and are critical of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi’s right-wing party). For the most part, the primary purpose of this site is to refute claims made in social media that are in video format. Still, they do look at others as well, such as this: “Fake news: Kerala government arrested a Sabarimala child protester.”

Alt News frequently uses emotionally loaded language in its headlines, such as “Sensationalism, sleaze, and misogyny – the other face of right-wing propaganda.” When it comes to sourcing, Alt News sources social media and credible sources such as Indian Express and firstpost.com. While Alt News sometimes attempts to debunk misinformation against the BJP, such as here “No, Yogi Adityanath did not laugh at Pulwama martyr’s funeral; old video goes viral,” they almost exclusively fact-check those that favor the left and are opposed to the BJP.

In an interview published by Caravan Magazine, Sinha replied, “We [Alt News] started in February 2017. The first year was completely dominated by the right wing regarding misinformation put out. But now, there are several pages that do pro-Congress propaganda.” In other words, they are not just fact-checking the BJP government.

Failed Fact Checks

None in the Last 5 years. They are fact-checkers.

Overall, we rate Alt News Left Biased based on story (fact check) selection that favors the Left and High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing of information and a clean fact check record, as well as being referenced by IFCN fact-checkers. (M. Huitsing 4/26/2019) Updated (10/20/2023)

Source: https://www.altnews.in

Last Updated on October 20, 2023 by Media Bias Fact Check