When Arnab Goswami was at the helm of Times Now, he used to command top ratings. After spending almost a decade working with the Times Group he quit the channel to launch his own venture Republic TV which became fully operational on 6th May.
Maybe out of nervousness or spite, this has resulted in the establishment media almost ganging up to go after Arnab Goswami and his channel.
From calling Republic TV a ‘BJP propaganda outlet’ to casting aspersions on its credibility (while the same media has broken records in producing fake news), the establishment seems to be doing it all.
Today, India Today’s Rahul Kanwal shared a screenshot of a post from a page named “BJP New Delhi” that announced the return of Arnab Goswami with his new channel. Kanwal then proceeded to conclude that Republic TV was 100% biased and was indulging in “Supari Journalism” (a term used by his senior Rajdeep Sardesai often to target Arnab) as the BJP was apparently going all out to promote it:
One party going all out to prop up one TV channel. 100% bias. 0% objectivity. Agenda: Promote the BJP. Fight opposition. Supari journalism! pic.twitter.com/0dhIh5qwB1
— Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) May 9, 2017
This was also picked up Sagarika Ghose who only yesterday was caught in being a party to peddling fake news and a so-called journalist who had tried to defame Indian army by peddling fake pics and recently supported a murderous troll who celebrated massacre of CRPF jawans:
This is just crazy! https://t.co/GcJ19qJ7VB
— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) May 9, 2017
Many will be tempted to troll Mr Kanwal and say “what about…”. Don’t. He’s absolutely correct. This is party-media nexus at its most naked https://t.co/TBLlawSwIX
— Aditya Menon (@AdityaMenon22) May 9, 2017
As it turned out, there was a slight issue with the source cited by Rahul Kanwal. BJP spokespersons [1][2] were quick to point out that the page which Rahul Kanwal was quoting had no affiliation with the party and was an unofficial Facebook page. The Facebook page in question too clarified its About Us section to explicitly state that it was a Fan Page of BJP New Delhi.
Verifying this fact might not have been a difficult task for Rahul Kanwal as just typing BJP Delhi in the Facebook’s search box leads one to the official verified page of BJP Delhi, which had no such ‘welcome’ message to Arnab Goswami or his channel.
Such a witch hunt against the Republic TV and Arnab by the establishment media has become commonplace since the channel launched 3 days ago.
Here are a few such instances of journalists aligned with the Congress and Left ecosystem not hiding their propaganda (where they turned blind eye towards Lalu-Shahabuddin nexus just to bash Arnab):
Level of co-ordination between BJP party functionaries/allies and their new, paid-for in-house “news” channel on full display today
— Mihir Sharma (@mihirssharma) May 6, 2017
Not to worry: my mother will. Mere paas maa hai and she knows the diff between supari and credible journalism! So chill karo!? https://t.co/YdzmEJSuZq
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) May 8, 2017
Need for a ‘nationalistic’ channel says @MVenkaiahNaidu on @republic tv. I’m embarrassed as a journalist. Nationalism replacing neutrality?
— Harinder Baweja (@shammybaweja) May 6, 2017
Never thought Arnab can produce a channel worst than Times Now. But he has done it with political money! https://t.co/ajMqrkzS2u
— nikhil wagle (@waglenikhil) May 8, 2017
Things turned ugly today when this journalist-politician ecosystem tried to malign even private citizens by branding them BJP workers having access to Republic TV’s inner workings in their attempt to discredit Arnab Goswami.
One such case was related to author and entrepreneur Nupur Sharma, who is now considering legal action for being subjected to calumny and lies:
Proof of me being informed by twitterati and SS displaying Sunanda murder tapes ticker at 6:06 PM. Retract or face legal action @plato_news pic.twitter.com/mfegtZVlkh
— Nupur (@UnSubtleDesi) May 9, 2017
