In this age of the internet, there’s little that doesn’t go viral. Including the news. But there’s some confusion as to what is meant by “viral news” and what constitutes “viral content”. More to the point, is there a difference between “news” and “content”? Or are they synonymous?

To discuss the finer points of this question, Roli Pulse, the digital arm of Roli Books, in association with Newslaundry, brought together Sattvik Mishra, CEO of ScoopWhoop; Pragya Tiwari, journalist and policy consultant; Andre Borges, content creator at Pocket Aces; and Abhinandan Sekhri, co-founder of Newslaundry. 

“I think news has largely been dictated by a bunch of editors who sit in a room and decide what news should look like,” Sattvik says, and emphasises the importance of presentation and diversity in making something go viral. 

Pragya says, “There is a massive disconnect between the people who are thinking about marketing and people who are thinking about editorial.”

Andre chips in, “Content creation and journalism, for me, don’t have to be two different things.”

Abhinandan responds, “I don’t see how a commercial proposition can be made on that because then there is no incentive to spend on ground reportage where traffic is your only metric.”

Listen.

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