Vishvasnews.com is an initiative of MMI Online Limited. It is managed by a dedicated editorial team of Vishvas News.

It deals with issues which are in the public domain. Busting fake news, that is capable of creating social imbalance and influence the thoughts of general public, is the main agenda of Vishvas News. The basic objective of news dissemination is to ensure that the people know what is happening and understand the possible causes so they can form their own opinions and arrive at their own conclusions.

We publish news after checking the authenticity on the basis of the facts without any fear or favour. We make our journalism more insightful, meaningful and essential to the daily lives of the people.

With the approval from the Board of Directors of the company, a Fact Check Team within the company (letter attached), has been formed. This Team is independent of the other editorial operations of the Company and is engaged in fact checking and busting misinformation in the mainstream and social media.

The Team reports directly to the Editor in Chief of the Company.

Attachments – 1). Certificate of Incorporation of the MMI Online Limited.

2). Setting up of Fact Check Team within MMI Online Limited.

The applicant has provided the relevant documents to show that it is a registered firm and that it has a fact-checking section. 

http://vishvasnews.com/ 

The applicant has regularly published fact-checks over the last three months, averaging to about one a month. 

1. http://vishvasnews.com/editors-pick/there-is-no-melamine-in-your-milk/

2. http://vishvasnews.com/editors-pick/fake-photo-of-shivraj-singh-seat-budhni/

3. http://vishvasnews.com/editors-pick/this-website-claiming-to-allot-lpg-distributorships-is-fake/

4. http://vishvasnews.com/editors-pick/kashmiri-fire-video-going-viral-in-pakistan-is-fake/

5. http://vishvasnews.com/world/truth-about-the-picture-of-allahabad-kumbh-2019/

6. http://vishvasnews.com/politics/poora-sach-did-modi-make-a-kid-say-rahul-gandhi-pappu-hai/

7. http://vishvasnews.com/politics/rahul-gandhi-speech-on-raising-sun-from-the-west-was-fake-2/

8. http://vishvasnews.com/politics/the-scene-from-a-bhojpuri-movie-is-being-shared-in-wrong-context/

9. http://vishvasnews.com/politics/woman-burning-has-nothing-to-do-with-rss/

10. http://vishvasnews.com/world/truth-of-statue-of-unity-is-visible-from-space/ 

At Vishvas, we seek items to fact check based on whether the claim is newsworthy and would help to give a better understanding of complex issues. We generally take the trending fake news story of the moment and fact check requests from our readers and attempt to debunk them. To identify these stories, we sieve the social media (Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp) thoroughly and keep a tab on our own handles for any fact check suggestion from our readers. To maintain a rational standard across fact checks, we follow the same process in all stories. We doubt everything that is served to us and perform basic fact checking for every alert in the social media feed. We make sure that none of our stories are politically inclined, we stay away from giving any opinion. We let the proof and evidence speak for itself. We make sure that the evidence attached in a story are self-explanatory. We let our readers draw their own conclusions.

The applicant has explained it policy on checking claims. It has also assessed claims using similar standards, and it has not concentrated on one side of the topic it fact checks. 

Many stringent standards are ensured by the observance of Vishvas’ comprehensive Editorial Policy that lays down the code of conduct and guidelines for its journalists. Vishvas stands by its ethical stand of ‘no Influencers policy’ which ensures that its stories are not influenced by any external bias. No one working in Vishvas engages in partisan political activity and never make any contributions to candidates or advocacy organizations.

http://vishvasnews.com/nonpartisanship-policy/ 

The applicant has mentioned a non partisanship policy. It would help, however, for the applicant to provide a copy of the contract for their employees where such non-partisanship is a required condition. It would also help to have a copy of the internal editorial policy. 

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The applicant has subsequently provided a copy of the contract for their employees, as well as a copy of the internal editorial policy. 

Vishvas writes its stories in an explanatory manner so that the readers can debunk the story on their own and there is no scope of influencing the fact check in any way. All the proofs are attached in the story and the process is explained in detail.

Sources are always provided so that readers can follow the fact-checking process from tip to toe. This includes posting and imbedding tweets, links, pictures, screen grabs of reports, and any other relevant elements. We identify sources in full, including a link to the source.

As the first step, we verify the source of the information or news. Once a claim is established, we consider it the most important step to find reliable sources of evidence to check the claim against. We rely on multiple sources to write our fact checks. If we are unable to verify it, we do not publish the news or information. The news source could be newspaper articles, Youtube links of news shows, tweets, Facebook pages. In the age of the Internet, some people pass off other organizations’ coverage as their own facts, which can lead to serious problems. We therefore take this as our responsibility to only serve the information that is verified and authentic. The source is given full credit for news published on the site. For instance – ANI/PTI/IANS. The image source is also given full credit. Every source we refer to is hyperlinked or attributed in the story.

Political parties, leaders, lawyers, and other professionals have presence on Facebook and other social media sites. We follow them or include them in our contacts list. While adding influential persons of the society we maintain that presence only in order to monitor the news feeds and nothing else; we do not communicate with them on that platform.

We are sensitive to the fact that different people have diverse viewpoints. If somebody has denied any allegations then this point is also included in the article. It is essential to make the effort to ensure that all reporting is impartial. The sole aim of ‘Vishvas’ is to ensure that consistent and unbiased news is published.

We ensure that data used in charts and infographic is accurate. We check the data (numbers) carefully so that our readers get the correct information. While covering political statements, we check the same at every level possible. It is our moral responsibility to provide our readers and followers full and complete news.

Key sources are mostly always clearly referenced and linked in a manner that readers can replicate the fact-check. The applicant has shared a description of its sourcing policy. 

The Vishvas News is working under the banner of ‘MMI Online Limited’ (CIN no. U72300UP2008PLC036242 ) a legal entity incorporated under Company’s Act of India and funded by the company’s promoters. You can view MMI Online Limited most recent financial disclosure i.e. Balance sheet for Financial Year 2018-2019 (attached).

Vishvas News does not accept donations from Political Parties, contested or elected candidate of any party and Individual.   

The applicant lists its owner group, but does not provide any further details on funding. It has also provided the balance sheet of the owner company, but would do well to provide some details on this section is funded. 

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The applicant has since provided details on the funding. 

http://vishvasnews.com/fact-check-team/ 

The names of the key people in the organisation are clearly listed, with their bios and roles. 

http://vishvasnews.com/contact-us/

The applicant invites readers to reach out. Each fact-check has the invitation at the end of it, and the Contact Us page is clearly accessible.

http://vishvasnews.com/methodology/ 

The applicant's website provides an explanation of it its methodology. 

There are multiple ways through which the readers can submit claims to fact-check and provide us feedback about our stories. In every story, in the end, there is a dedicated leave a reply section for submitting feedback. Also, at the bottom of every story, there is our email contact@vishvasnews.com

and a dedicated WhatsApp No. 9205270923 through which the readers can reach us. All these inputs from the readers are regularly monitored.

The applicant's website provides information on how readers can send claims. It has provided various methods to send these claims. It might help for the applicant to provide information on the frequency of reader-submitted fact-checks. 

Vishvas never takes a step back from accepting its mistakes. We have many open platforms where the readers can get back to us with any correction, they may need in the content published. We welcome suggestions and rectifications from our readers which we receive in the form of whatsapp messages, emails, comments and phone calls. In addition to this, we also have an internal quality control team that re-checks everything that goes live on the site neutrally.

We have a Fact Check Alert number for whatsapp +91-9205270923 and email id: contact@vishvasnews.com. This number and email id are mentioned at the end of every story so that it’s feasible for the reader to easily point out anything they may find incorrect. We never fail to acknowledge our mistakes and respond when brought to our notice.

Team Vishvas rectifies every mistake as quickly as possible. When we receive any complaint regarding the inaccuracy of our content, we immediately put it on hold and determine the facts. Once the facts have been examined, we take a considered decision and appropriately respond to the feedback. Depending on the authenticity and magnitude of the mistake/error, we remove/edit the published information or duly inform the reader in case the identified error does not qualify as a mistake with an explanation.

If a major mistake is found in a copy, we republish it with the correct version and duly give credit to the person who identified the error and makes it a point to mention it in the copy.

http://vishvasnews.com/correction-policy/ 

The applicant's correction policy is clearly articulated. 

The below mentioned story was shared with us by Facebook team for fact check. We had checked the story credentials and found them to be misinformed. We had done the fact check of the story and posted it on our flagship product www.jagran.com.

https://www.jagran.com/football/headlines-video-is-fake-in-which-brazil-team-welcome-with-stones-and-eggs-18179729.html 

Below is the sample of story which was reported by our user as fake and we did a fact check and updated the correct story.

Before- https://www.jagran.com/bihar/muzaffarpur-mp-pappu-yadav-crying-after-bharat-bandh-supporters-attack-on-his-car-and-group-18395493.html

After – https://www.jagran.com/bihar/patna-city-exposure-of-crying-video-of-mp-pappu-yadav-during-bharat-bandh-18399130.html

The applicant provided two examples of corrections. However, the applicant ought to provide these examples in the pubic correction page, where it only mentions a policy.