Ranjona Banerji: Arnab Goswami’s Newshour – Jingoism not Journalism!

By Ranjona Banerji

It had to happen. Just when I praised Arnab Goswami and Times Now for taking on Dr RK Pachauri and TERI in their unacceptable behaviour in the sexual harassment case against Pachauri, Goswami gets his channel into full jingoism mode deciding to bypass journalism for grandstanding.

Let’s get back to the beginning. On February 9, some students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University organised an event in support of Afzal Guru, the terrorist who had been hanged for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament. Guru’s involvement had been a matter of controversy then as it seems to have become again.

But what’s happening now is something else. Like the last government, this one seems trigger-happy on the “sedition” angle to suppress all criticism. And as journalists, our primary role has to be to watch and report, not jump in and take sides. There was, as people have pointed out, something immensely cynical in the way Times Now decided that it had to play the “patriotic” card at all costs. This is one of those double-edged cards. Is it patriotic or anti-national to mention for instance that many Indians do not have access to adequate healthcare or toilets or education? You could well argue that it presents India in a bad light internationally to keep harping on our shortcomings. But if you never mention it, are you ignoring the reality for most Indians and failing as a journalist?

So when journalists, students and teachers are attacked by lawyers at the Patiala House Court on February 15, as they waited for JNU students’ Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar’s sedition case to come up, how is a newsroom to respond? The usual procedure is for journalists to stick together and such violence to be condemned. The police stood by and did nothing. This normally makes Times Now furious. However, this time it broke the code and decided to concentrate on the families of those police and security personnel killed in the 2001 attack on Parliament to demonstrate the channel’s high regard for patriotism and sidestep the travesty of rule of law and the frightening excesses of mob violence on display at Patiala House Court.

This is Alok Singh of the Indian Express on what happened to him on February 15:

“You will not shoot videos,” he said. I told him I wasn’t recording and was only making a phone call. A third man, also in black robes, rushed over and slapped me. “Desh ke gaddar (anti-national),” the group shouted. Within seconds, I was surrounded by at least 10 men in lawyers’ coats. They started slapping and punching me, targeting my face and head. I remember screaming at them, “I am a journalist..I am a journalist.” But nobody seemed to care. After a few more seconds, they stopped but then another man dressed like a lawyer walked up and slapped me again. They kept shouting at me, “He recorded a video…get out of here…get out.” Finally, a lawyer from the court came to my rescue. He stopped the assault, and told me to quietly leave the premises. I asked for my phone, which was handed over to me. The screen was cracked. – See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/jnu-patiala-house-court-attack-indian-express-journalists-recount-the-assault/#sthash.YP4MWRDV.dpuf.

In case Indian Express is not credible enough for Times Now’s idea of journalism, here’s Sana Shakil, a journalist from The Times of India, its sister concern (or big brother, to be technically correct):

“The agitators’ attention then turned to us. We thought our press ID cards would guarantee us safety, but of course that wasn’t to be. A journalist who sported a beard was called a traitor and his ID dismissed as fake by the assailants; I was told that I looked like a JNU student and was abused harshly for looking at my attackers in the eye.

The frenzied lawyers threatened to teach us, “deshdrohi (traitorous) journalists”, a lesson. “Bone bhi todenge aur phone bhi todenge, (We will break your phones as well as your bones,” rasped an angry advocate. From my five-year experience of legal reporting, I thought things would be fine once the judge emerged from his chamber. But even as the pro-BJP/anti-JNU slogans got more raucous, the judge did not make an appearance. Instead, corralled by them, we continued to be tortured physically and mentally.”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/One-of-them-said-bone-bhi-todenge-phone-bhi-todenge/articleshow/51001849.cms

Through the day on television, most news channels focussed on this behaviour. So did most primetime shows. However, Times Now could not be bothered, as it continued with its “patriotic” line. Whatever was happening on Arnab Goswami’s show was not journalism. It was not amusing. And it represented precisely why Goswami’s show is popular and why sensible people cannot watch it. I must in this congratulate Zakka Jacob of CNN-IBN as he stuck to his guns no matter how absurd Sudhanshu Trivedi of the BJP behaved on the evening debate.

Meanwhile, the dangers of journalists and media houses aligning too closely with political establishments remain. The fact is that the people who beat up journalists, students and teachers outside the Delhi court were aligned to the BJP. The fact that you as a newsroom or a media house cannot shift away from that alliance to stand with your fellow journalists when they are under attack, demonstrates your understanding of what being a journalist means. Or not… most likely, not.