Rahul Roushan (born 29 January 1980) is an Indian blogger and businessman. Roushan founded Faking News, a satirical news website, and is the CEO of OpIndia, a right-wing news portal that has been found publishing fake news on multiple occasions.[2] Originally from Patna, he is now based in Mumbai[3] and is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Mass Communication and IIM-A.[4][5]
Rahul Roushan | |
---|---|
Born | Patna, Bihar, India | 29 January 1980
Pen name | Pagal Patrakaar[1] |
Occupation | Blogger, businessman |
Language | Hindi, English |
Nationality | Indian |
Alma mater | Patna University IIM Ahmedabad |
Genre | Current affairs, Satire |
Website | |
rahulroushan |
He served as the editor of Faking News until 2016[6] and previously also worked as chief strategy officer for Swarajya, a conservative Indian magazine.[7]
In March 2020, he published his autobiography titled "Sanghi Who Never Went To A Shakha."[8] The book received positive reception from many including Kangana Ranaut, Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri and Madhav Sharma.[9]
Roushan comes from the city of Patna in Bihar.[3] He graduated in Mathematics from Patna University in year 2001, and then received a postgraduate diploma in broadcast journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) in New Delhi in 2002.[citation needed] Roushan is also an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad with a Post Graduate Diploma in Management granted in 2007.[4] Roushan is settled in Mumbai, where he lives with his wife, with who he has a daughter.[10]
After graduating from IIMC, Roushan worked as a copy editor, bulletin producer, and news anchor with the Hindi news channel Sahara Samay for two and a half years.[1] He left journalism to pursue higher studies at IIM Ahmedabad, wherein he turned an entrepreneur.
While still being a student, he had launched crickstock.com, a virtual gaming website, ahead of the 2007 Cricket World Cup.[4] Crickstock.com was later sold off to a US based online gaming company and Roushan chose a freelancing career as management consultant; one of his projects included helping the Bihar government set up a management institute in Patna, in 2008.[11]
In 2008, inspired by the American news satire website The Onion, Roushan started Faking News[5][3] as a blog and wrote under the pseudonym Pagal Patrakaar (crazy journalist).[1] In 2009, the blog was turned into a full-fledged website.[5] In 2013, Faking News was acquired by Firstpost, a news portal of the Network 18 group, for an undisclosed amount.[6] Roushan went on to serve as its editor till September 2016, when he switched to Swarajya as Chief Strategy Officer.[citation needed]
In November 2018, he became the CEO of a spin-off digital media startup – Aadhyaasi Media & Content Services, which took over the production of OpIndia from Swarajya.[12] Ideologically oriented towards right-wing populism,[20] OpIndia claims to be a fact-checking website,[13] but has published fake news on multiple occasions.[2] In May 2019, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), an affiliate of the Poynter Institute, rejected Roushan's application to have OpIndia certified as a fact checker.[27]
Priyanka Sharma wrote in the Business Standard that several authors followed Roushan's lead to start similar ventures as Faking News, including the founders of newsthatmattersnot.com and The UnReal Times.[1]
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