Indian news market is heavily politicised, says BBC World's Jamie Angus

In September, BBC launched several initiatives designed to tackle fake news in India and other countries. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar speaks to Jamie Angus, director of BBC World Service Group, on it. Edited excerpts:

When we spoke in 2017, BBC was doing reality check to counter fake news. Where is it on the issue now?

One year ago, fake news was primarily a story about Donald Trump. In South Asia and South East Asia, it is now beginning to threaten lives and security. What is happening in India has pushed this to the front of the public debate. So, we are doing a series of events around this. There is India’s biggest research around fake news that is co-funded by the BBC, Google, and Twitter, which will be out in November. The idea is to inform public policy debate around fake news. As news publishers, we are also looking to improve news literacy. So, we are working with Jio and WhatsApp among others, to make sure that quality news reaches chat apps. 

What kind of work is happening around the 2019 Indian general elections?

We are making a special commitment about Indian elections with a daily election reality check. Everyday, we will publish a reality check on a debated fact — say rate of growth or involvement of women. BBC is uniquely positioned to validate a point of fact. The Indian news market is heavily politicised, there is a trust deficit. BBC is independent and audiences come to us for independent adjudication of facts.

There are so many shades of grey in the term fake news. A biased piece or something you don’t agree with is also called fake. How do you sift through that?

The term fake news conceals as much as it reveals. It could range from deliberate disinformation to poor quality news. Media literacy is not where it should be. The worst of fake news is often spread at such a fast rate on social media and through chat apps because it often confirms bias, taps into pre-existing social tensions, and because users do not verify the information they come across with other, more reliable sources. BBC cannot police the internet but it can invest in the media literacy of the audience it serves.

What are you doing on media literacy?

BBC School Report, which brings children into the newsroom, is an ongoing project in the UK. Now, we are bringing it to India and Kenya. This involves sending trained BBC World Service staff into schools to bolster a young person’s ability to judge the news they see as real or fake. The objective is to debunk the fake news and help students find and implement solutions. In India, we have rolled out the school workshops across 12 cities such as Delhi, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, and etc. These four-hour workshops are done in modules of an hour each using games, videos, and team exercises. At the end of the workshops, students will be asked to come up with action points to work on. This can include, creating an art project, essay-writing competitions, creating a play or skit, a song or music or other ways of sharing what they have learnt. Several of these follow-up projects will be presented across India on November 12 as part of the BBC’s Beyond Fake News project. On November 14 and 15, a hackathon event in Delhi will link India’s top computer science students with tech companies to explore how technology can help stop people inadvertently sharing fake stories.

What can regulators do?

A strong, independent regulator helps small publishers reach standard, remove bad actors. Regulators can help but it is not really a regulatory problem. 

In a highly polarised market, say India, the US or even Britain these days, we don’t seem to agree even on objective facts. How do we move to agreeing on what is fake news?

Is Brexit good for me is a political question not a factual question. What happens to the pound is a factual question and that is where reality check has a role.