ScoopWhoop Media is an Indian

digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

company based in

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

. It operates various online content verticals and serves as a

news organisation News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. Ne ...

featuring

web series A web series (also known as webseries, short-form series, and web show) is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet (i.e. World Wide Web), which first emerged in the late 1 ...

documentaries A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". The American author and media analyst Bill ...

and current affairs reporting with a focus on

video production Video production is the process of producing video content. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with video recorded either as analog signals on videotape, digitally in video tape or as computer files stored on optical discs, hard drives, SSDs, ...

and primarily catering to

adolescents Adolescence () is a transitional stage of human physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with ...

and

young adults In medicine and the social sciences, a young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence, sometimes with some overlap. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages ...

. It also features other

infotainment Infotainment (a portmanteau of ''information'' and ''entertainment''), also called soft news as a way to distinguish it from serious journalism or hard news, is a type of media, usually television or online, that provides a combination of inform ...

and entertainment content. The company was co-founded by Sattvik Mishra, Rishi Pratim Mukherjee, Sriparna Tikekar, Saransh Singh, Suparn Pandey and Debarshi Banerjee in 2013. Initially started as an Indian viral content generating and sharing website and described as a

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet mass media, media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Seward Johnson III, John S. Johnson III to ...

clone, it has since expanded into a news media company competing with the likes of

The Times Group Bennett Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL), d/b/a the Times Group, is an Indian media conglomerate based in Mumbai. Notable media properties owned and operated by the group include India's largest selling daily English-language newspaper ''The ...

Dainik Jagran ''Dainik Jagran'' () is an Indian Hindi-language daily newspaper. In terms of circulation, it was ranked 5th in the world in 2016 and 1st in India in 2022. In 2019 Quarter 4, according to Indian Readership Survey, Dainik Jagran reported a to ...

and

NDTV New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. It was founded in 1984 by economist Prannoy Roy and journalist Radhika Roy. NDTV began as a production house for news segments, ...

on the digital platform.

History

ScoopWhoop began as an online blog for

listicle In journalism and blogging, a listicle is an article that is structured as a list, which is often fleshed out with additional text relating to each item. A typical listicle will have a title describing a specific number of items contained within, a ...

s launched in August 2013 inspired from

. The first post on the blog was a listicle named: "These pictures from a Hindu lesbian wedding would make you all go aww." The idea was conceived by Sattvik Mishra, Sriparna Tikekar and Rishi Pratim Mukherjee. The listicle had generated over half a million views within a day which provided the impetus for the expansion of the blog into a regular project. Saransh Singh and Suparn Pandey were brought into the project around this time. The five co-founders were all alumni of the

Indian Institute of Mass Communication Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) is a deemed-to-be-university, established on 17 August 1965, Delhi. Considered as the best media education institute of the country, it has five regional centers across India. The IIMC is an autonom ...

of whom all except Sriparna Tikekar were employees of the designing and online marketing firm Dentsu Webchutney while she herself was an employee of the advertising firm

McCann Erickson McCann, formerly McCann Erickson, is an American global advertising agency network, with offices in over 120 countries. McCann is part of McCann Worldgroup, along with several other agencies, including direct digital marketing agency MRM//McC ...

. The co-founders remained as employees of their respective firms while working on expanding ScoopWhoop as a side project. By January 2014, the

WordPress WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...

hosted blog had been converted into a website and a viral content producing entertainment company. Debarshi Banerjee who is also credited as a co-founder was brought in for his technological expertise and became the Chief Technology Officer of the company. In early 2014, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, Ben Smith came into contact with the co-founders and offered them to work in partnership with BuzzFeed however the offer wasn't followed up by either party. Subsequently,

Times Internet Times Internet is an Indian multinational technology company, headquartered in Gurgaon. It is the digital arm of The Times Group, the largest media conglomerate in India. Through its venture capital arm TVentures, Times Internet has invested ...

also offered to acquire ScoopWhoop but the offer was rejected by the co-founders of ScoopWhoop. Siddharth Rao, the CEO of Dentsu Webchutney eventually discovered the project and became one of the first investors along with the

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

Harsh Chawla, the first CEO of

Network18 Network18 Media & Investments Limited, (d/b/a Network18 Group) is an Indian media conglomerate owned by the Reliance Industries, headed by Mukesh Ambani. Rahul Joshi is the managing director, chief executive officer and group editor-in-chief, a ...

and the founder of

Firstpost Firstpost is an Indian news website owned by Network18 Group, which also runs CNN-News18 and CNBC TV18. It has posted misinformation on multiple occasions. The Network 18 group was originally owned by Raghav Bahl. In January 2012, the gro ...

who was also an early investor of Dentsu Webchutney. In November 2014, Bharti Softbank – the joint venture between

Bharti Enterprises Bharti Enterprises Limited is an Indian multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate, headquartered in Delhi. It was founded in 1976 by Sunil Bharti Mittal. Bharti Enterprises owns businesses spanning across tel ...

and

SoftBank Group is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services to customers in a m ...

invested in the company and acquired 36.5% of its shareholding. The valuation of the company was estimated to be approximately at the time. According to ''

The Caravan ''The Caravan'' is an Indian English-language, long-form narrative journalism magazine covering politics and culture. It was initially launched in 1940 by Vishwa Nath, becoming a prominent monthly magazine before ceasing publication in 1988. T ...

'', the investment turned the co-founders of the company into overnight millionaires. In February 2015, ScoopWhoop began its venture into news media and hired the journalist Anuja Jairan as the

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

who had previously been an employee of

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

and ''

Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English language, English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media Limited, an entity controlled by the Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia, the daughter o ...

''. Subsequently, in November 2015, the company again raised investments worth US$4 million from the venture capital firm

Kalaari Capital Vani Kola is an Indian venture capitalist. She is the founder and managing director of Kalaari Capital, an Indian early stage venture capital firm. She was listed as one of the most powerful women in Indian business by ''Fortune India'' in 2014 ...

to expand its editorial and video division. Since then it has entered into partnerships with ''

Newslaundry ''Newslaundry'' is an Indian media watchdog that provides media critique, reportage and satirical commentary. It was founded in 2012 by Abhinandan Sekhri, Madhu Trehan and Prashant Sareen, all of whom earlier worked in print or television jo ...

'' and

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

for the production of documentaries and distribution of their content respectively.

Content

ScoopWhoop produces digital content across a variety of topics and interests; it includes current affairs reporting, interviews,

, etc. with a focus on producing video content as well as

s, quizzes,

memes A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ...

and other entertainment and lifestyle content. The company owns and operates five digital properties for the publication of its content namely; ''ScoopWhoop.com, ScoopWhoop Hindi, Vagabomb, ScoopWhoop Unscripted'' and ''OkTested''. In a 2015 article of Quartz India, ScoopWhoop was described as an outlet that was trying to become the Indian version of BuzzFeed and

Vox Media Vox Media, Inc. is an American mass media company founded in Washington, D.C. with operational headquarters in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in November 2011 by CEO Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass ''S ...

with a slice of

Vice Media Vice Media Group LLC is a Canadian-American digital media and broadcasting company. Vice Media encompasses four main business areas: Vice Studios Group (film and TV production); Vice TV (a joint venture with A&E Networks, also known as Vicelan ...

. While initially the company had started as a producer of listicles and other viral content; according to the

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its original purpose was "to assess the performance ...

in late 2016, ScoopWhoop "had since moved into the broader terrain of news." It was identified as one of several independent and recently founded internet-based media platforms – a group that also included '' Scroll.in'', ''

'', ''

The News Minute ''The News Minute'' is an Indian digital news platform based in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was founded by Vignesh Vellore who is also the current CEO in 2014. Apart from Karnataka, it also has bureaus in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, ...

'', ''

The Quint ''The Quint'' is an English and Hindi language Indian general news and opinion website founded by Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur after their exit from Network18. The publication's journalists have won three Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism ...

'' and ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

'' – that were attempting to challenge the dominance of India's traditional print and television news companies and their online offshoots. The ''

Business Standard ''Business Standard'' is an Indian English-language daily edition newspaper published by Business Standard Private Limited, also available in Hindi. Founded in 1975, the newspaper covers the Indian economy, infrastructure, international busi ...

'' described ScoopWhoop as an outlet that disseminates of news in non traditional formats around that time.

''ScoopWhoop.com''

''ScoopWhoop.com'' is the primary website of the company which was launched with the founding of ScoopWhoop as a digital media

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

. It is an English language general news and entertainment website. The website also features various web series and documentaries produced by ScoopWhoop. The division is currently headed by Shivam Singh. ScoopWhoop is currently collaborating with ''

'' to produce the documentary series called ''Chase''. The series is focused towards producing seasons on various news and current affairs and is directed by the journalist Avalok Langer.

''ScoopWhoop Hindi''

''ScoopWhoop Hindi'' is a website which is the

Hindi language Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of the Government of India, alongside English, and is the ''li ...

edition of ScoopWhoop for viral news and entertainment content. It was launched under the name ''Gazab Post'' in 2015 and renamed to ''ScoopWhoop Hindi'' in June 2018.

''Vagabomb''

''Vagabomb'' is a website focused on current affairs, lifestyle and other contemporary writing catering to women. It was launched by ScoopWhoop in 2015.

''ScoopWhoop Unscripted''

''ScoopWhoop Unscripted'' is a

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel launched by ScoopWhoop and hosted by Samdish Bhatia, with its own production team and which solely hosts unscripted current affairs and entertainment content. The channel hosts the ''Off the Record'' web series which features interviews with various notable personalities, including the politician Manoj Tiwari, activist

Yogendra Yadav Yogendra Yadav (born 5 September 1963) is an Indian activist, Psephology, psephologist and politician whose primary interests are in the political and social sciences. He was a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies ...

, journalist

Ravish Kumar Ravish Kumar (born Ravish Kumar Pandey; 5 December 1974) is an Indian journalist, author, media personality and YouTuber. He was the Senior Executive Editor of NDTV India. He hosted a number of programmes including the channel's flagship wee ...

, among others. In October 2021, Bhatia announced that he was resigning from the company.

''Ok Tested''

''Ok Tested'' is a YouTube channel launched in 2017 by ScoopWhoop which produces lifestyle and entertainment content.

Readership

In late 2016, the monthly unique readership of ScoopWhoop across all its three websites was estimated to be 30 million and their monthly views across all its internet assets including channels on

social media platform Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongst virtual communities and networks. Common features include: * Onlin ...

s was estimated to be 225 million.

Controversies

In April 2017, ScoopWhoop co-founder Suparn Pandey was accused by an executive of sexual assault and misbehavior during the 2 years she worked with ScoopWhoop. In March 2018 ScoopWhoop personnel were found to be involved in negotiations for a political campaign by investigative media portal Cobrapost. In February 2022, a former ScoopWhoop employee, Samdish Bhatia accused the founder and CEO Sattvik Mishra and his wife of sexual harassment and assault, filing an

FIR Firs are evergreen coniferous trees belonging to the genus ''Abies'' () in the family Pinaceae. There are approximately 48–65 extant species, found on mountains throughout much of North and Central America, Eurasia, and North Africa. The genu ...

against him. Subsequently, the court refused to grant an interim injunction sought by Mishra in connection with this case.

References

{{Media of India 2013 establishments in Delhi Indian news websites Internet properties established in 2013 Mass media about Internet culture