Rahul Roushan, creator of India’s most popular news satire website Faking News, shares with ANANYA BORGOHAIN the journey that transformed a personal blog into a phenomenon, and now a grand organisation with lakhs of followers
Accredit his marketing skills or his penchant for thinking out of the box coupled with the inclination towards journalism, it is true that Rahul Roushan’s Faking News has become a channel for catharsis to many today. It started as a personal blog, but over the years has become the first popular satire news website. This being the age of technology further helps in propagating its agenda.
Faking News is now a major organisation with lakhs of followers on social media. Thirty-four-year-old Roushan, aka Paagal Patrakar speaks about the journey in an interaction.
What is your earliest memoryIJ
I originally hail from Patna and graduated from there as well. I pursued my post-graduation diploma in journalism from IIMC, Delhi, after which I worked at Sahara for two years. later, I completed my MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. I also started www.crickstock.com around 2007, a virtual stock exchange, modelled on the Bombay Stock Exchange. It allowed cricket-crazy fans to trade virtual stocks of their favourite players online. In 2008, I created Faking News. It was in the form of a blog then and I would casually write about things that gripped my attention. There was no intention of marketing it on a large scale to turn it into a phenomenon. But it eventually did. I was based in Delhi-Gurgaon till the last year and was also working as an independent journalist. Now, I am settled in Mumbai with my wife.
Do we see your journalism background in the contents of Faking News, and your MBA background in its formatIJ Sure both disciplines help you in writing as well as marketing the website respectivelyIJ
Sure, Faking News is a mixture of both news and satire. Its core is news, but in extension, it is a comment on news itself. We keep ourselves updated and opinionated. Journalism too entails delivering social commentaries, so yes, that aspect of my background manifests therein. As far as my MBA background is concerned, Faking News was not the first Indian satire website, but it is indeed the first popular one. My MBA training helped me popularise it. It was a blog and it became what it did without any investment from any group. I guess I could attribute that to my business acumen.
When was the first time Faking News gripped national attentionIJ
It has to be the Axe story in 2009. FN reported, “Unable to attract even a single girl, frustrated man sues Axe”. People from UAE to USA thought it to be true and reportedly Axe earned free publicity worth millions of dollars. Many news organisations of repute published the story thinking it to be true. That was the first time FN gripped popular attention. People began to follow it.
How did you popularise it furtherIJ
Gradually, Google ads and traffic started pouring in. I too began to meet people for sponsorship, and things materialised. The content was actually popularised by the readers. I had created it for a target audience. It was for the youths, the college-going, engineering/MBA pursuing students. For people who appreciate the dark sense of humour. Besides that, it was also a personal endeavour. I was a journalist and always had the inclination to write. So it furnished me the forum to write. But when your brand begins to outgrow you, you need to outgrow as well. For four years I ran it singlehandedly and today it has become an organisation.
What is the core team nowIJ
There are three full-time writers, though we do have plans of expanding the team. We have brainstorming sessions; every day we come with a list of ideas and potential headlines and develop them.
How do you handle writer’s blockIJ
It helps to have more than one person in the team. We exchange ideas to attain fresh perspectives and opinions. If one suffers from writer’s block, the other can carry it ahead.
Now that FN is owned by Network18, has it come with a new set of agendas, a new list of dos and don’tsIJ
We have the same constraints as others. We need to take care of legalities and sentiments and try our best to stay away from controversies. lawsuits are very common these days and we try to create content within the comfortable perimeter of legal attributes.
And how do you deal with critical responses to your sense of black humourIJ
At the risk of sounding haughty, first of all, I can’t read each and every response, nor can I reply to each of the ones I do read. So I hardly interact with the readers; we are not a customer care service! We are not rejecting public opinion at all but we prefer to avoid miscommunication. People do get the humour; the ones who don’t, I can’t help them.
What is your daily life like when you are not workingIJ
I can’t seem to get rid of the internet. I surf a lot of websites, other satirical content and so on. I also like to read, particularly the classics. I am very fond of Raag Darbari by Sri lal Sukla.
lastly, is there any boundary that you, as far as FN is concerned, can’t bring yourself to transgress even in the pretext of humourIJ Say, for instance, a comedian may decide never to crack a joke on physical deformity…
Well yes, I have my parameters too. First of all, I will abide by the legal boundaries. But I will also not make fun of something that is oppressed. I believe that humour should not reinforce negativity on something that is already vulnerable. So, say, I will not crack any random joke on reservation or homosexuality.
However, if I find a gay activist babbling to garner publicity, I might come up with jokes on him/her. You see, there is a difference therein. It’s like attacking Archies is not akin to attacking Valentine’s Day. I don’t intend to be politically correct. There is no holy cow. I am open to making fun of almost everything without crossing the line.
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