By Shailesh Kapoor
The speculation had been rife for almost a year. That sometime in the future, Arnab Goswami will do the inevitable – part ways with Times Now. But it was a simmering speculation that never really materialised. Till early this week.
We have no “official†statement from the man himself or his organisation. Accounts of an editorial meeting is the foundation of all reporting on this topic. Some social media posts and video clips from the said meeting have gone online, such as this one. But further information is hard to come by.
It was said, when the “news†first broke on Tuesday, that the show that night will be his last Newshour show. He has hosted that one and two more, as if it’s business as usual. Clearly, the news media hasn’t made much headway in investigating this case.
But that hasn’t stopped them from covering it. The coverage, despite little information available to build a running story, has been relentless. Digital news sites and apps, who ask for funding from venture capitalists using the argument that traditional news is dying, have left no stone unturned to make a TV news editor their poster boy. The irony is hard to miss.
Equally fascinating is the nature of the coverage itself. Humour is a recurring theme in how Goswami’s exit has been covered, both in social media and in online news. And why not? If you watch some of Goswami’s recent speeches at seminars and conventions, he has started talking of himself in caricature terms, often playing along, even fueling, the ArGo humor mill that has been running on top speed on social media for a few years now.
Interestingly though, there is little coverage of Goswami’s impact on the news media in India. The man may go off our TV screens for a while, but it’s certainly not an obituary that we are writing. So one can understand the absence of “contribution†pieces. The few that exist talk about the commercial contribution – of taking Times Now to a position of long and undisputed leadership.
Goswami’s real contribution lies in changing the news format on Indian television, across channels and languages. Even his harshest critics come from channels that have adopted the popular news debate format as their prime time set-piece. He has also had a considerable impact on the political and public discourse in the country, with “statements†from his debate being used in the Parliament, among other places, more than once.
Times Now does not have a strong second line of anchors. Days when Goswami is off-air, The Newshour is an insufferable watch, because it seems everyone who replaces him is out there to become another Arnab Goswami.
But there cannot be another Arnab Goswami. You may hold him in awe, be indifferent to him, or detest him. But you cannot deny that he is not substitutable. You cannot deny that we may not see another one like him in our lifetimes.
Where will he go, everyone’s asking. As long as he gets a primetime debate show, the platform won’t matter. The man will outshine the scenery. Which is not necessarily a good thing for a media company, even if it’s his own. But it comes as a part of the ArGo baggage.
As we wait for more official information to come in, it will be nice to go on an Arnab Goswami detox for a while. One just hopes it’s not a very long break.