Arnab Goswami-Other views
18 12 2007I first wrote about Arnab Goswami here:
Contender #1 for worst Indian journalist - Arnab Goswami
Some people feel strongly that I am overtly polarised and am not being fair to this bloke here. Further, as I am no accomplished writer myself, there is some doubt about the credibility I lend to opinions on others. So I thought I’d quote someone else who thought on similar lines atleast.
Excerpts from ‘The Insufferable Shouting Brigade’ by Amita Malik, featured in Sight & Sound in The Tribune:
“SOME years ago, there was a political group in Parliament which went by the rather unflattering title of The Shouting Brigade. Ironically, some of them have since become political spokespersons on television and continue to shout, not allowing others to speak, mostly when they are losing an argument which is one of the specialities of the BJP.
But it is not about them that I use the title this week but, also ironically, about some of the best-known anchors on Indian television.
I have by coincidence met a number of discriminating, sophisticated viewers (one of them a distinguished author) who take their viewing seriously. They expressed their views quite independently at different small gatherings in private homes and they all had a similar complaint which they wanted me to convey in this column. They felt that some established anchors make themselves intolerable by first shouting and then interrupting participants in their programmes. They voice more opinions of their own than give enough time to the participants to develop their arguments.
On top of the list were Rajdeep Sardesai and Arnab Goswamiof NDTV 24/7, Times Now respectively. And I was not altogether surprised as I had recently often felt uncomfortable about their new aggressiveness, where plain emphasis (a speciality of Tim Sebastian), which is legitimate, is replaced by perpetually raised voices (mostly Rajdeep’s) and rude interruptions(Arnab’s) which seem contrived. This is a new style of aggressive anchoring which is not half as effective as the more balanced and quietly effective style of Vikram Chandra or, of course, the relaxed authoritative style of Prannoy Roy. In this context I find embarrassing, and positively childish, the publicity gimmick of Sardesai throwing a dart to emphasise the belligerent attitude of his weekly programme, The Big Fight. Watching this programme with extra care last week, I found that the raised decibels are initiated at the start by Sardesai himself, who shouts more like a neta addressing an open-air political meeting than a sophisticated anchor who knows the use of the microphone. With the tone set, most of his panellists start shouting too, and, incidentally, Sardesai often chips in with more views of his own than those of the participants. That it is possible to be a panellist in this programme without shouting loudly was proved by both Alyque Padamsee (a theatre person he knows the use of his voice) and the editor of Loksatta. Both spoke emphatically but without shouting like Sardesai and the Shiv Sena participant who, however, was much more amiable than some of his party colleagues and even smiled occasionally. As for Arnab Goswami, he seldom lets a participant complete a sentence before arbitrarily butting in. One feels at times that the anchors have been given a directive to be aggressive and shout, no matter what. But I cannot believe that because the majority of anchors and reporters on NDTV 24/7 manage to keep their cool, and their voices under control”
Enough said!!
Pwned!
Waiting for people to butt in
with comments.
I agree that Arnab Goswami does get aggressive ’sometimes’…….but when he says something he makes it a point to prove himself right…..and according to me he is one of the best
@Cynara,
You are entitled to your view. Saying something and proving yourself is not necessarily journalism or news reporting.
according to me it is………….what is journalism or news reporting to you Karthik ?
I dont agree with you at all. Seeming intelligent is a perception thing. I tend to believe that the guy is *actually* intelligent. If you’ve seen Rajdeep Sardesai recently, he’s lost a lot of his original touch and elegance. He appears artificial and so does his wife, Sagarika Ghosh. I think the lady mentioned deserves the award for the worst journalist in India today.
@Rohit,
I have never heard of Sagarika Ghosh. If you want it that badly, we can ask Arnab and her to share the “Worst Journalist” award. Arnab has to be there though.
Nice to have you on my blog, btw.
I just have to echo “Arnab Goswami … seldom lets a participant complete a sentence before arbitrarily butting in. One feels at times that the anchors have been given a directive to be aggressive and shout, no matter what”
and again, “the raised decibels are initiated at the start by Sardesai himself, who shouts more like a neta addressing an open-air political meeting than a sophisticated anchor who knows the use of the microphone”. I also believe that these people won’t change in their attitudes and their artificial articulations, they may be too old to do so.
and even too self-opinionated and egoistic, as though these qualities represent the essence of youth and ebullient/ vibrant intellect, especially before mass media which are useful in their “anchoring” job in political debates.
@Muthukaruppan,
Good that some people agree.
Dr Roy belongs to and is in the Doordarshan mould most of the time. However, he is elegant. Rajdeep Sardesai was at his peak when used to anchor X-factor on NDTV. Unfortunately, he has lost purpose at CNN IBN.
I remember a raw Arnab Goswami on NDTV, who was still at cross roads. At TIMES NOW, he has evolved into a mature newsman. His nine’o'clock NEWS HOUR is one of the most uninturrupted prime time news shows today. He takes on issues, which are not taken by other channels. Strangely, there is a strong contrast to what TIMES OF INDIA as a news paper stands for and what TIMES NOW as a news channel is. I believe, a lot of credit has to go to Arnab, because, FRANKLY SPEAKING, he is doing a good job.
I don’t know about Arnab Goswami (not having watched television in ages) but Rajdeep Sardesai definitely doesn’t seem intelligent. I find nearly everything he says vacuous.
Then there’s that other woman, I’ve forgotten her name. She was quite big, probably still is. You know that lady with short hair, sort of, hosts these shows where people from an audience talk about stuff like whether Sania Mirza’s skirt being short is a problem. What’s her name? People like her are below the intellectual poverty-line.
@kgsdani,
Agree with you on Roy and Rajdeep.
Can’t say the same of the remainder of your comment.
@George,
Are you talking of Burkha Dutt ? Ha ha. Clearly you hate Indian news anchors and reporters. It’s actually a good thing. Hate them good.
This man was very impressive. Articulate, polite, and a painfully clever questioner the last time I saw him, which was on HARDtalk India with Jayalalithaa.
Barkha Dutt. I have much to say about her.
@George,
Karan Thapar is good, no doubt. He made Modi sweat in an interview . Modi walked off the interview midway. He has that sort of an effect on people.
Yeah, Big J was also visibly upset when she left. And he got her that way simply by asking incisive questions.
Barkha Dutt, I remember seeing her on TV after the tsunami. A conversation that went like this (somewhat, not exact):
BD: So we’ve spent crores of rupees on satellites and they weren’t able to detect the tsunami.
ISRO Dude: They weren’t built for that task, and even if they were they’d only be over the area once every sex hours and it’s unlikely they would’ve been able to detect a tsunami even if they were above the area at the time with the tech they had.
BD: Are we going to have tsunami detection equipment?
ISRO Dude: *Something about equipment*
BD: So, can we have these detectors installed in the satellites at least by … tomorrow?
ISRO Dude: *Astounded expression*
See, maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t know we had the capability to send a device up in one day’s notice and have it couple with an existing satellite that has no mechanism to make such an act easier. I’m no expert though.
@George,
sex hours ? Why do I get the feeling it wasn’t a typo ?
Yea, media people ask the dumbest question and try and sound intelligent when the clearly are not. If it was designed in a hurry and sent up there, (without thorough testing) it would bring the existing satellite down and probably land on some major city. Idiots. They try to sound concerned about things so that viewers would agree with them and in the process make actually intelligent people appear quite stupid.
Also, BD was in this episode of ?? on NDTV on blogging. Freakin hilarious. They were discussing the most mundane stuff and somehow most of the discussions were centred around sex. (Sex hours ?
How dumb for a journalist!!
I…uh…it wasn’t a typo, it was a mindslip. Cut me some slack, I’m only 20 years old, not fifty. Things like that happen.
How did they jump from blogging to sex? Blogging while naked except for a big red cape! I like the idea.
Sure, satellites landing on cities…
Atmosphere: OH HAI KARTHIK, U 4GOT ME!
@George,
It’s alright. I like sex hours anyway.
@Marc,
Crash was the word I must have used. You are supposed to have gotten it anyway. And if you meant the satellite would burn completely, you don’t know physics very well. And we were talking of launch itself. Not that it was in orbit.
I am not a TV buff. However, I watch news and have been consistently following news channels for more than ten years now.
Karan Thapar tries his best to make people uncomfortable. I do not consider that to be a good vertue in a TV journalist. He thinks he can do Tim Sebastian. I am afraid, he miscerably fails to make even half of Tim.
Yes, hard questions are hard and need to be asked. You can get the truth out in many ways. One need not put words in a Guest’s mouth.
He could make Kapil Dev weep. (Not a great thing again)
I think Barkha Dutt does a neat job of managing people on “We the People”. She tries to make most of her limited abilities. However, I have a different point altogether. Whenever I have seen her talking, she tends to bring in KASHMIR, no matter how irrelevant it may be.
I would tend to agree that most of the news correspondents, when they report from the action site tend to ask really foolish questions. Questions, for which we know what the answer would be. Questions, which have standard answers……Ah…unbearable.
Soemtimes the news anchors also fall into the trap and sound foolish. If the anchors start it, then may GOD help them!
About Karan Thapar, I’ve only seen him twice and both times I enjoyed the show because he asked the right questions at the right time. One was when Jayalalithaa was on HARDTalk India, the other I forget. Sure she was uncomfortable, but he wasn’t rude, or even impolite; he was just asking questions that showed her up.
Agree completely with the last paragraph, and I’d add that panel discussions where the moderator is completely clueless are the funniest because the rest of the panel will reach one conclusion and the mod will go in the opposite direction.
Rajdeep Sardesai did that once on CNN-IBN (I don’t watch the channel usually, but my dad was on this discussion) and it was hilarious. Everybody managed to reach a consensus and then he goes and says something like, “The question still remains…” . Weird fellow.
@kgsdani,
When politicians like Jayalalitha and Modi do what they do, they deserve to be questioned the way Karan Thapar questions them.
One feels sorry for Kapil Dev though.
Barkha does try and get mileage from the fact that she reported Kargil LIVE. She doesn’t want us to forget I guess.
@George,
I wish we could record all this and interview these buggers in turn. It will be so nice.
Dear Karthik,
It seems, hating a modern TV journalist comes to you naturally.
Is there is any specific reason for this?
I would say that most of them are news/nonnews hype experts.
Nonetheless, are all of them like that? What is your opinion?
What are the qualities you look for in a good TV journalist?
Since I’m always butting in on conversations I might as well do that here too.
Here’s what I look for. If it’s news, I want less journalist, more journalism. If it’s an interview, I want them to stop lobbing easy questions, this isn’t show-off-your-project-in-class day, it’s real life. Barkha Dutt fails the former, most interviewers fail the latter, and Rajdeep Sardesai just fails.
[not-serious]
A word in for Jajar Singh from Headlines Today. He’s hilarious. Every time he goes “I’m Jajar Singh” I feel like crumpling to the floor in laughter.
[/not-serious]
Is it Jhujhar Singh or Jajar Singh?
Anyway, I have repeated his name after him several times and ha haa hhaaa….
@kgsdani,
Yes, as a matter of fact it does. Simply because they make complete fools of themselves. Just like Bollywood actors do in movies.
I don’t think there are any good reporters on TV left. As you say, most of them are just hype.
What I expect of a TV journalist or a reporter is that they be well informed on the topic at hand. (It is very evident at times that they don’t know what they are talking about. Do your home work.) Also, they should not try and polarise topics on their own. Their opinion doesn’t matter to me.
What has been happening of late is TV NEWS has become a form of entertainment. People want to see gossip on it all the time. Who did Shahid Kapoor kiss. Why Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor are doing what they are doing. !! Like I care. These reporters have absolutely no ethics.
Just like politicians, all they are looking for is mileage from some incident. More coverage, sensationalism, more advertisements, more money. That’s all these people are bothered about.
I remember reading Nidhi Razdan in some magazine saying people from a competing news channel paid people on the streets to burn effigies of Sachin and Dravid after their world cup loss. All this was caught on camera and duly telecast of couse.
If this is the state of affairs, I don’t feel bad about hating journalists and reporters at all. All they do is manipulate the news and serve it with garnishing.
@George,
Jujhar Singh except for his “This is Jhujhar Singh” line was pretty alright compared to most other reporters.
He has disappeared of late. Last I saw him on TV, he was exposing things like how people have goons outside the courtroom to intimidate the witnesses, and how in Delhi one could get the “Non-polluting Vehicle” Licence even if you drove a heavily polluting car and things like that. Not bad at all.
You haven’t seen Entertainment Quarter on HT. The two people there are the next two contenders for the worst journalist award. I’ll dig up on them and write soon.
@ksdani, karthik: So that’s how his name is spelt. I haven’t watched TV in quite a while, so I wouldn’t know. But he’s just awesome. That voice! Ha ha ha.
tl;dr
@Marc,
I knew you were going to say that. You knew you were going to say that. I am sure George knew too.
Dear Marc,
That was one of Karthink’s best posts on this topic so far and you say it is long and could not read!! and you could not write it in full. Really bad.
I normally do not write in at blogs (I came across this page accidentally and found it had some meaning). Most people “blog” to say meaningless thrash. Urban dictionary is good, however it need not be used when one is discussing something serious. Think about it.
I suppose, you might ask what we would achieve by discussing seriously about such things, WELL….it is better than most of our day to day nonsense.
Dear Karthik,
I agree with you. In fact, what you say applies more than 200% to Hindi and other Vernacular news channels. (some English news channels such as BBC World, although not Indian, have still maintained ethics of news broadcast)
Shall we go on with this topic? Your posted it December last year.
When Marc’s in his 4chan mood, not even nekkid loli pics will stop him.
And yes, Karthik, I was surprised it didn’t come earlier. I love the BBC. They’re awesome, except for their Eye-rack moments.
Dear kgsdani,
I forgive your ignorance.
1. I do in fact read all of Karthik’s posts (except those about cricket).
2. I was in fact referring to his long comment and not the post.
3. You thought I didn’t read even though my comment is the first one in this post and first in the post he linked to.
4. So you found the term ‘tl;dr’ and didn’t know what it was. So you went and searched for it on the net (smart move) and found the meaning. But what you didn’t understand was that I was trolling. And the worst possible move is to encourage trolls by addressing them directly. If you do you’ll either get Photoshopped Chuck Norris pictures, pedobear wallpaper or long replies that make you waste time reading them. The ideal move would have been to totally ignore me so that you can go on discussing the actual topic instead of getting completely sidetracked by my responses which, though very interesting and provocative, are not relevant to the discussion at hand in any way. Atleast now you know. Haha I made you read this.
Troll: 1
Hapless Inexperienced Internet Victim: 0
@Marc,
pwned. He was refering to the comment.
“best posts on this topic so far and you say it is long and could not read”
The term post was misleading yes, but then you shouldn’t have fallen for it.
@kgsdani,
Marc is a fellow college mate and we keep doing such things in each others’ blogs. Nothing to worry about.
My apologies to Karthik. I started a nonsense conversation with Marc and this will be my last post on this topic. Thank you.
From Pwned to tl;dr to a dummy post. Good progress Marc!!
Can’t we all just get along? Where is the love?
He clearly said post. Regardless of what he meant point 4 still applies.
@Kgsdani,
Why the apologies ?
@George,
Ejjatly
@Marc,
Give it a break.
What the…. ??? i read this now. neat and relevant.
Hi all,
I agree with the original post that so well describes the “yelling” in Indian television.
The topper is Sagarika Ghose from CNN-IBN, who is intolerable besides defeating the purpose of an interview. She has a shrill voice and most of the time is being paid to override the interviewees. Another is Rajdeep Sardesai … guys it should have bagged the “Best english yelling channel”.
Red
@Sudeep,
The linked post ?
@Reddy,
I am yet to see this Sagarika Ghosh (or atleast don’t know her by name.) Is she the one who speaks with a false accent ?
Being a journo i wont call anybody the worst ……as there is always a fight to promote the brand instead of let the poeple knows news as it is, so everybody has his/her own style to remain in the battle. I do agree that anchors speak or sometime cry like spokespersons…..so do Rajdeep and Arnab! whatever the case u can tag them best or worst…..they are journalists, let them do their job….becoz u can’t get delicacy of Dr. Pranoy Roy out of everybody.