Meet Shafique ul Hasan, Whose Mission is to Counteract False News

Meet Shafique ul Hassan, he has recently been awarded a world record for sharing newspaper clippings of correct news to counteract false news that can be used as propaganda against certain communities. For over a thousand days now, he has uploaded news clippings of real news without fail, even with the pandemic there has not been one day when he did not do this task.

Shafique took up this initiative on 24 June 2017 and since then there has not been a day when he did not upload the news clippings to prove fake news was wrong. His first news clipping was about lynching of of Hafiz Junaid. He said he had no idea he would even complete 1000 days without a break on March 25, 2020. With each passing day, the passion of Shafique only grew and today ( 24 June 2022 ), his initiative crosses a 5 years milestone. 

“These 5 years have given me many experiences. Most of my friends encouraged me. Even those who did not take it seriously initially, began taking interest in it when people started talking about it,” Shafique said.

For this initiative, Shafique was given an international award by the International Book of Records. He starts his day at 5 AM every day, he browses e-newspapers during his morning walk, and from every newspaper he reads, he browses through around 22-25 newspapers a day and he patiently and painstakingly creates a collection of authentic and worthy news stories. Although Shafique has come a long way since he first moved to Delhi and started his own marketing agency, the journalist in him has never left him.

His ultimate goal is to erase fake news from the news cycle completely and he pledged to keep doing this until this goal is met. After finishing a thousand days, he decided to take a break and focus on his health and well-being however, since then many politicians came forward pleading with him to not stop as his work is extremely important to the community. He complains that although he has received an exorbitant amount of praise for his work, no one actually volunteered to physically help him out. People have now come forward and offered technical help and other support.

Shafique ul Hassan always had a passion for journalism; he started his career as a journalist at the age of sixteen when he published a Hindi newspaper. However, his father wanted him to finish his formal education first hence, he discontinued publishing the newspaper. He moved to Delhi in 1986 with only 5 rupees in his pocket before fetching a job in an advertising agency that earned him 4500 rupees a month.

Famous filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt also commented that Shafique ul Hassan single-handedly did the work of an entire organization and further commented that his collection of news clippings should be preserved in a library because it is going to serve as a source of accurate news for the generations to come.

News is supposed to inform people and bring people together but the use of fake news has turned news into a powerful tool that can manipulate people. In an age where political parties are leveraging fake news to gain favor, journalists like Shafique are more important than ever.

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