He has a sore throat. He coughs. He yells. Not as much as he used to but still more than anyone else. He is not as regular on Times Now Newshour nowadays, understandably so, since he is not going to be part of Times Now system anymore and perhaps he is only serving his notice period. Last night he was not there, but the night before he was, with his familiar “one second, one second” rant and it seemed everything is in the place. Only for the time being.
This is Arnab Goswami for you, the superstar of prime time TV journalism, the Elvis of news media, the pied piper, the head turner, the show stopper, the rapper, the rock star : you name it. One thing is for sure, the Indian TV audience can’t do without him anymore. He is their daily staple, their diet, their need, their magnetic glue. Nobody knows for sure how long he is going to linger on Times Now and how long will it take him to put together his new show, but in turbulent times like these, none can afford to lose him for long. He has to be there. And if he refuse to be there, they would erect him somehow to do what he does best : screaming and yelling and speaking without letting others speak and create a chaos of soundbites, a spectacle of anarchy, for all to behold and cherish.
Arnab can be arrogant, ill-mannered, uncultured and even not well prepared at times. He can be a megalomaniac driven by pre-conceived, simplified notions, and yet, today there is no important journalist in India than him. The work he has been doing is monumental, phenomenal. He is doing what was never done before like this. He is taking on the nexus of liberals, seculars, communists on such a large scale of influence, unleashing such an enraged public discourse and in due process, exposing them in such a way that it is no less than a national service, so to speak. His is the aesthetics of cacophony.
It's only nice to see those living-in-a-bubble-liberals getting punctured on his shows on daily basis, in full public view, for all to see. Probably that is tit for tat to them. Perhaps, this is the only language they would understand. This is what they themselves have been doing over the years. They created a hoax of ideology, Arnab is attacking them with a hoax of no-idelology, but the scale is enormous. Nation glues to Times Now during prime time as Arnab tears into those pseudo, pro-terrorism liberals and reduce them to skeletons. Well, rather nations used to uptil now and is eagerly awaiting for the new Arnab paradigm to emerge.
Public discourse is the new weapon of mass destruction. Debating furiously and exposing hypocrisies in full public view is the new order of the day. Another five-six more influential journalists like Arnab and hopefully we shall get our public discourse free from the clutches of communists.
Remember, what Arnab is doing is not the most appropriate form of discourse, but it is only appropriate to take on the nexus. Once the "ideological cleansing" is done by marginalizing and nullifying them, we shall move on and instead of Arnab will even look for a more literate, well mannered, democratically inclusive journalist. But as of now, we need him. What he is doing is no less than national service.
Finally a mainstream English language journalist with such a large influence who is not the part of the gang. Two thumbs up to Arnab for this alone.