International body declares Firstpost as ‘unreliable’, then withdraws it without clarification

On April 30, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) of the Florida-based Poynter Institute published an “an index of unreliable news sites”. Three Indian websites made it to this index: Firstpost, Indiatimes.com and Postcard.news.

Firstpost was tagged as “unreliable” in the index. Postcard News and Indiatimes.com (owned by the Times Group) were given the same tag. But there’s more to the story than this.

The index, which originally listed 515 names, relied on lists that were “public and curated by established journalists or academics, contained original data (rather than information from other lists), stated their criteria for inclusion and defined how they graded different sites.”

However, on May 2, IFCN removed two news websites from the index—the Washington-based Washington Examiner and Firstpost. Its Twitter handle tweeted about the removal, but without any note of regret or apology.

Its website added the correction: “This index previously listed The Washington Examiner and FirstPost as unreliable news sources. After reviewing our methodology, we found that neither met the criteria for inclusion, so both were removed.”

Indiatimes.com and Postcard News still remain in the index.

The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) is an organisation that monitors trends in fact-checking internationally.