About Us

Question. Conversation. Commitment.

This is an age of information overload. A story goes stale within four hours. A headline that broke in the morning paper has already spread across social media the night before, and by sunrise it is old news. There is X, there is Facebook, there is YouTube.

Alongside all this runs a steady refrain: that attention spans are shrinking, that people would rather watch than read, that news is entertainment and entertainment is news. The line between fake and real keeps dissolving. AI is offered as the cure for every ailment. The distinction between writer and reader is disappearing, and the distinction between truth and falsehood is blurring.

So when we launch a news website called The Credible News, the first question that arises is the obvious one: why? What was the need? What will this do that isn’t already being done? Who will read it, and why?

These are fair questions, and the biggest responsibility this website carries is to find complete answers to them. Because what we have right now is enthusiasm, a certain obsession, and a hazy picture of a dream we want to turn into reality.

When we started the YouTube channel The Credible History, that was all we had then too — enthusiasm, obsession, and a hazy picture of a dream. Covering everything from history to national and international news, we learned a great deal, and the support you gave us multiplied our courage many times over.

News Is Not Information

A flood came and a village was washed away — that is information. But it remains incomplete information until someone explains that eighty years after independence no system was ever put in place to prevent it, or that the village might still be standing had the forest beside it not been felled for an industrialist. Information is only the beginning. It is analysis that turns information into news and presents the full picture.

So that is where we begin: instead of bombarding you with information, our emphasis is on analysis.

The path we have chosen for ourselves has three parts — question, conversation, and commitment.

Question

The first job of journalism is to doubt, and to ask questions. Questions of power. Questions of the powerful. Questions of those who make the policies.

Someone who bows before the powerful and stands firm only against the poor may be many things, but a journalist is not one of them.

Our effort is to be a voice for the public, and to bring forward the questions that get drowned out in the noise of power.

Conversation

The entire structure of democracy rests on conversation. What is Parliament? A place where the treasury and opposition benches talk to each other and ask questions. In court, too, the two sides argue and debate.

In truth, the greatest difference between democracy and dictatorship is precisely this: under dictatorship there is no room for questions or conversation. One person’s order is final. That is why a dictator wants a journalism that does not converse with the public but simply presents his word as the last truth. Every voice of dissent is branded anti-national. Praise of the ruler and blind devotion are recast as patriotism. Honest journalism builds the resistance to this.

And that resistance is not possible without the strength of the public. Which is why conversation with the people, rather than with power, is essential. Establishing that conversation is what we are trying to do. For us, every one of you is a correspondent. You can write here. You can tell us about the problems around you.

The wider and stronger this conversation, the healthier a democracy will be.

Commitment

The newspapers that emerged during the freedom struggle existed to spread social and political consciousness. Their commitment was unmistakable, and that is why journalism was regarded as social work rather than a way to make money.

Times changed. Journalism became a profitable trade. Big money moved in, and newspapers gradually became shields for their owners’ other businesses. Naturally, the space for social concerns kept shrinking — and then came the era of captive media, with a handful of large business houses controlling the channels, and journalists who could explain why even rising prices were good news.

At The Credible News, our effort is to fulfil that older social responsibility.

Where We Go From Here

These are the intentions we are starting with. How far we get, time will tell. We hope, as always, for your support.

You can read more about how we approach sourcing, corrections and opinion on our Editorial Policy page. Have a story tip, a problem in your neighbourhood, or something you want to write for us? Our Contact Us page is open.