Arnab Goswami, a bit of balance please
His big, brash cocktail of news and views packs a punch and he highlights issues other channels ignore, but Goswami's Newshour can do with some nuance.
VIKRAM JOHRI on TV’s biggest bully. Pix: Times Now~s hawkish stance.
I was still moaning the loss of India at the World Cup semi-final when Twitter began showing trends that had little to do with the defeat per se, but rather talked about how one channel, viz Times Now, was covering the event. One tweet read: “Times Now is reporting utter crap about the Indian defeat in Sydney. Journalists need to condemn this.” Another read: “Times Now is trying to trend #ShameInSydney. Let’s instead trend #ShameOnTimesNow.”
I switched on the channel and sure enough, the India defeat was being portrayed as a great shame for the country. The reportage gave prominence to sundry fans back home who had gone on a rampage. There was no perspective to the defeat, nor was there any editorial condemnation of such rowdy behavior.
The reporters themselves seemed to gloat in the vicarious thrill of seeing the Indian team handed their just desserts and it was hard to shake off the feeling that the go-ahead for such blatant un-reportage had come from the very top.
In the week that Vinod Mehta passed away, Outlook brought out a cover on Arnab Goswami, the editor-in-chief of Times Now. The back of the book was devoted to Mehta and featured a string of laudatory articles by such eminences as Arundhati Roy and Pankaj Mishra. The cover story on Goswami, on the other hand, was uniformly critical, blaming him for single-handedly “killing television news”. (In a rather sweet irony, Mehta was a prominent panelist on Times Now and the channel gave his death ample coverage.)
The immediate provocation for the Outlook piece: a signed statement by Aruna Roy and Vrinda Grover and others who felt disenfranchised in a debate chaired by Goswami on the government’s refusal to let Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai fly to the UK to deliver a talk.
In 2012, Caravan did a cover on Goswami too, one that was less scathing yet lamented the state of the news business since his arrival on the scene. (Talk in media circles refers tongue-in-cheek to pre- and post-Goswami epochs.) Chat with the ordinary viewer, though, and you will hear panegyrics for the star anchor. Why does the man arouse such extreme emotions?
Consider a recent campaign, for it was nothing but that, unleashed by Goswami on Newshour, the signature show that has brought him both wild popularity and much disdain. When the D.K. Ravi suicide story broke, Goswami converted the Newshour that night into a pulpit and invited other common citizens who had lost their loved ones to the politician-criminal nexus to share their stories.
It was, to be sure, a most affecting show and Goswami’s palpable anger seemed to tap into the general mood of exasperation at the depth of corruption in public life. The next day, Times Now was at Freedom Park in Bangalore, the site of the protest against Ravi’s death. Live images of an angry public were beamed throughout the day. Goswami is great at capturing the nub of a story and he saw the incendiary potential of this one.
This taking the bull by the horns is perhaps what attracts viewers to Newshour day after day. At a time when nearly every aspect of our public life reeks of corruption and nepotism, Goswami’s clarion call to take on all comers resonates with the middle class, the constituency that has been his strongest cheerleader.
Goswami’s clout extends to his ability to throw light on issues that are traditionally moved to the back burner. On the day that India voted in favour of Russia on an anti-gay provision, Times Now was the only channel to discuss the matter. A motley bunch of people – a Newshour specialty – comprising gay rights activists, Hindu and Muslim voices, and lawyers made up the panel.
As always, the debate descended into cacophony in no time. The religious voices appreciated the government’s vote since it showed the “deviants” their place. The gay rights activists pooh-poohed such claims and had some fun at the expense of the resident punditji.
In the middle of all this, Goswami adopted his stentorian voice and chided the anti-gay voices for presenting an image of India that was out of tune with modernity. “How can you have an economically progressive agenda with a socially regressive one?” he thundered, and for a moment, one felt he was addressing Modi directly. I am not the biggest fan of theatrics but on an issue that affects me personally, Goswami’s characteristic shrillness left me ecstatic.
However, such zeal can also backfire. When reports about a personal angle to the D.K. Ravi suicide began to change from mere conspiracy to possible reality, Goswami was forced to take a U-turn and drop the story entirely.
To someone who had been following the story on Times Now over the past two weeks, the sudden silence was no less than shocking because, in the initial days, Goswami had promised he would follow this story “to the end”. But he had built such a frenzy around the possible involvement of the state in the “murder” of Ravi that when the narrative changed he had no option but to go silent.
Goswami’s views on a number of matters have also been a sticking point. On Pakistan he is an unabashed hawk, and some would say why not? But we have not, in recent memory, had a journalist with a voice as far-reaching as Goswami’s who has consistently chided the government or civil society for yielding even an inch on Pakistan.
In the aftermath of Masarat Alam’s release by the Mufti government, Newshour debated why the BJP should not sever ties with the PDP in Kashmir. This was one debate where Sambit Patra, BJP spokesperson and a Newshour regular, was on the backfoot.
If Goswami’s tirade can put even the BJP on the defensive on an issue that involves Kashmir, it gives us some idea where his politics lie. Generals from Pakistan routinely get bashed on his show. Again, since Goswami arguably mirrors a majority opinion, he gets the eyeballs.
Clearly, he knows something about Indian news consumers that his rivals don’t. He has taken Times Now to great heights by dint of a personal vision that is provocative and fanatical in equal measure. No one can deny that Goswami can pull an issue from the jaws of obscurity and push it into the limelight. What he needs to do now is mix some nuance into the cocktail so that his bully pulpit begins to sound like journalism. Many would say he is fighting the good fight. He needs to do it more sensibly.
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