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 Awards and two Red Ink Awards.

In May 2014, Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur, the promoters of Network18 ended their shareholding of the media conglomerate with the takeover by Reliance Industries. Following the controversial exit, they founded the digital media company, Quintillion Media. The company was the first major investor in the tech startup Quintype founded by Amit Rathore. Quintillion Media launched The Quint publication in January 2015 on Facebook and as a website by March 2015. Quintype took over the digital technology operations of the publication. By December 2016, The Quint website had crossed the mark of 10 million unique visitors.

In February 2017, The Quint launched two online content verticals Quint Neon, a lifestyle news section and QuintLabs, a multimedia exposition platform. In the same year, it also launched the fact checking initiative WebQoof and partnered with BBC News for the production of a video series to combat disinformation. In September 2018, Google India entered into a partnership with The Quint, to host the "Bol: Love Your Bhasha" event featuring panel discussions on media readership and business strategy with the objective of laying emphasis on the potential of Indian languages. The event was attended by Anant Goenka, the executive director of the Indian Express Group, Arvind Pani, the co-founder and CEO of Reverie Language Technologies and the Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, among others.

The offices of The Quint and Raghav Bahl's residence were raided by the Income Tax Department of India in October 2018 in connection to an alleged case of tax evasion, the raid was termed as a survey by the Income Tax officers. Raghav Bahl released a statement which termed the raid as an attack on journalistic freedom while appealing to the autonomous Editors Guild of India to back The Quint such that a precedent is set against repetition of a similar exercise on any journalistic entity. The Editors Guild of India raised concerns that while the department was within its rights to carry out inquiries, the conduct of such exercises should not be akin to intimidation tactics.

In January 2019, The Quint introduced subscriptions for advertisement free delivery of its content and in July, it also introduced a premium membership initiative for access to webinars for members. Raghav Bahl completed his investment in the news publisher over the course of the years, amounting to $21.5 million from the capital gained following the sale of Network18.

In May 2020, The Quint was acquired by Gaurav Mercantiles through which it was listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The acquisition involved all assets of Quintillion Media excluding BloombergQuint. The transaction of Quintillion Media's assets to Gaurav Mercantiles was made on a related party basis due to the Bahl and Kapur's stake in both the companies and increased the borrowing base of Gaurav Mercantiles in accordance with the Companies Act 2013. Gaurav Mercantiles was earlier a ship breaking and trading firm which had not made any revenue since March 2018; ergo it entered into a debt-for-equity swap agreement in which Bahl and Kapur collectively acquired 66.42% of the company's stakes while Haldiram Snacks Pvt Ltd and the investment bank Elara Capital acquired 17-18% and 10% stake respectively. Mohan Lal Jain, the former chairman of Gaurav Mercantiles retained 4.99% stake in the company. In September 2020, Gaurav Mercantiles was renamed to Quint Digital Media Limited.

In terms of editorial content, The Quint is focused on educational and explanatory journalism. The primary mode of presentation is through newsletters, multimedia, documentary series, live video broadcasts, graphic journalism and podcasts. The site has published a range of influential stories on topics concerning sexual harassment, freedom of speech and Hindu nationalism. According to Reporters Without Borders, the site differs from other traditional news outlets in its interpretations of news with dedicated sections such as Documentaries and Explainers. The portal operates QuintLab which is described as an "innovation wing" of the publication and features an interface of various multimedia storytelling formats. The co-founder and CEO of The Quint, Ritu Kapur states that the publication's experimentation is concerted more towards the form and style of presentation that can be developed in a digital environment rather than the professional craft of journalism itself.

In order to combat disinformation, the publication also operates WebQoof, a fact-checking initiative certified by the International Fact-Checking Network. The fact-checking unit runs as a public service and encourages user submissions of claims for verification. Through audience participation, it gains access to hundreds of unverified claims and uses resource intensive techniques of employing journalists to fact-check claims and debunk hoaxes. The Quint is in particular involved in combating disinformation on the messenger app WhatsApp which has been noted to have become a difficult-to-penetrate viral distribution network afflicted by disinformation in India. According to Ritu Kapur, the co-founder of the publication, the WebQoof initiative has a reassuringly high consumption which goes against the presumptions of a post-truth world. The publication had also entered into a partnership with BBC News for the co-production of an educational video series "Swacch Digital India" to highlight the importance of fact-checking to its viewers.