Arnab Goswami is no longer the face of Times Now or the prime-time show, The Newshour. Just over a month ago, he resigned as the channel’s editor-in-chief and hinted that he would be at starting a media venture of his own. But though he’s gone, his phantom presence still emanates from screens every night since his abrasive style has since been adopted by many of his younger peers.
Goswami’s Fox TV-influenced manner attracted more analysis than any Indian anchor ever has. “He is the metaphor of the time, because he enacts the majoritarian Indian every day,” wrote the social scientist Shiv Visvanathan. Suggested columnist Ruchir Joshi, “As with all bullies, what drives Goswami is an engine of huge cowardice.”
The Newshour often featured a dozen participants, each in their own window, all yelling over each other. Goswami would throw around angry questions and charge up the viewers with the feeling that he was a brave soul daring to ask the tough questions that they had on their minds. “The nation wants to know,” he would insist to his guests.
The anchor was unapologetic for the chaos that passed off as discussion. “Television debates are not meant to be a Wikipedia-like functioning of rolling out facts and information,” he asserted in one of his speeches.
The video below picks on this very line to explain how Goswami’s style of journalism became a form of entertainment and why his viewers found his shouting perfectly acceptable – and even desirable.
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