Type of site Online magazines Website www.opindia.com | Owner Swarajya | |
Slogan(s) Journalism free from journalists’ bias and incompetence Alexa rank 4,008 (India) (March 2017) Launched December 2014; 2 years ago (2014-12) | ||
OpIndia.com is an English language Indian news and current affairs website that publishes op-eds and also curates content from various sources. The website is notable for exposing false or wrong information, deliberate or otherwise, published by the Indian Mainstream media on print, TV and web.
Contents
History
OpIndia.com was launched in December 2014 by a group of academicians and active social media users. The website claims that the Indian mainstream media has a left-leaning bias and thus to provide an alternate discourse, it will give space to right-liberal ideas and narrative.
The website soon gained popularity on social media and its articles attracted nationwide attention. In July 2015, OpIndia.com published an open letter written by a cop to those Indians opposing capital punishment to Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon, which was republished by many mainstream media channels. Many other articles of OpIndia.com, especially those rebutting claims or opinions of popular journalists of India have gone viral.
Although the website relies almost entirely on curation and opinions for its publishing needs, there have been occasions of original reporting too. OpIndia.com was quoted as the source by the mainstream media for an exclusive report about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting some social media users in July 2015. On another occasion, a report published by OpIndia.com led the government of India to take up an issue with Twitter regarding wrongful geographical depiction of some cities of India.
In October 2016, it was announced that OpIndia.com was being acquired by the Swarajya Group that publishes Swarajya magazine. Swarajya Group's Chief Strategy Officer Rahul Roushan was mandated to lead the post-acquisition initiatives.
Features
Most of the OpIndia.com articles are on media criticism and rebuttals to opinions expressed in the mainstream media. The website has been able to force changes in articles published by the mainstream media after it pointed out obvious errors or bias in those. OpIndia.com also allows its readers to write articles, which it publishes on its community driven chapter "My Voice" after moderation. Other article formats include satirical write-ups, listicles, open letters, and interviews. One such interview was shared on Twitter by the Prime Minister of India.