Arnab Goswami: Setting a standard?

Ihave always felt that the style of journalism that Indian journalist Arnab Goswami has been pursuing through his news broadcast channel is to be very loud and overly dramatic. It is doing a lot more harm than good. As someone pointed out some time ago, his news broadcast and talk-shows mostly reek of bias, besides having a tendency to insult the people he invites as his panellists. For Goswami, it is easy to have an upper hand since he controls his own television broadcast channel, but his attitude on the show is not nice. He often silences his guests by being rude or by shouting. The comments he made about the people of Kerala were uncalled for.

It is still not known what specifically irked the TV news anchor, but his words were not going to be taken lightly by the people of Kerala.

His verbal tirade came at a time when hundreds of deaths were reported in the state and almost the entire population was struggling to cope with the aftermath of the floods. Many people were displaced and thousands were injured. Nothing would have sounded ruder than making insensitive remarks about a large group of people whose homes, livelihood and savings were being washed away in the disaster. If Goswami didn’t not know how to show sympathy, then he should have not said anything.

Being professional and arrogant are very different situations. The channel’s programme should have meaningful arguments without loud haggling and deafening screams.

Often, the news anchor and journalist has witnessed many invitees walking out of the studio in a state of fury, over not being respected and being yelled at. He is supposed to be a host and a moderator, not another debater. It is time Goswami demonstrated a level of maturity that is befitting to a television news anchor and reserve his anger towards the many injustices prevailing in the country, rather than targeting victims with the intention of creating controversies for keeping the viewership ratings.

The reader is a resident of Dubai.