THIP Media and Newschecker join hands to form a fact-checking newsroom

Signatories to the IFCN’s code of principles, the two fact-checking media platforms are also third-party fact-checking partners to Meta (Facebook), and will harness each other’s capabilities to fact-check myths and misinformation around healthcare in regional languages in India and South Asia.

To tackle the spread of health-related misinformation and debunk common perceptions around healthcare and practices at the ground level, THIP Media and Newschecker announced this one-of-its-kind collaboration between two fact-checking platforms in the region.

Both teams will collaborate to identify and fact-check health myths and misinformation prevalent on social media together. Because fake news and myths often get translated and distributed to different sets of audiences, the companies confirmed that they will translate their joint fact-checks into multiple Indian languages to proactively inform a larger set of audiences to break the chain.

THIP Media, a part of The Healthy Indian Project, is a health information and fact-checking platform. Newschecker is one of India’s premier fact-checking platforms that debunks misinformation in 12 different languages.

Speaking on the collaboration, Neelam Singh, Editor of THIP Media mentioned, “At THIP, our aim is to educate Indians with the right health information and save them from misinformation. We are happy to partner with Newschecker. Newschecker’s reach among the masses through multiple Indian languages is envious. We believe health fact checks will be able to reach out to a larger set of audience through this partnership. This will empower people to be aware of facts even before a particular misinformation gets viral in their language.”

Ruby Dhingra, Managing Editor & Head, Newschecker commented, “THIP has built a niche for themselves and has a strong team of medical professionals and researchers passionate about fact-checking.   We are excited about this collaboration as it provides an opportunity to combine the best that both platforms offer, to reach a common goal - to provide access to accurate information that affects lives. I believe it shows the way forward for organisations like ours, to tackle the monster that is misinformation by providing a workable model, a precedent, on which future collaborations between organizations can be built”.