Arnab Goswami is one of the most popular TV journalists in India . He is the news anchor and managing director of the Indian news channel ‘Republic TV’. The program ‘News Hour’ a live debate hosted by Arnab at 9 pm during weekdays, was the most watched news program in India, before he resigned from the channel Times Now, on November 1, 2016. He launched ‘Republic TV’ along with business partner Rajeev Chandrasekhar, on May 6, 2017.
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Early Life
Arnab Goswami was born in Assam Guwhati on October 9, 1973. He was born in a family of well known jurists. Rajani Kanta Goswami, his paternal grandfather; was a lawyer, independent activist and a well known leader in the National Congress Party.
Gauri Shankar Bhattacharya, his maternal grandfather, was a leader in the opposition political group of Assam. He also received the award Asam Sahitya Sabha Award as a writer. Goswami’s father Manoranjan, was a Colonel in the Indian army. His mother Suprabha, was a homemaker.
Arnab Goswami – Education
Being an army officer’s son Arnab got a chance to study in various schools in different schools. He appeared in the 10th board examination at the Delhi Cantonment at Mount St.Mary’s School. He attended his 12th standard board exams at the Jabalpur Cantonment in Kendriya Vidyalaya.
Goswami completed his graduation in Sociology from the Hindu College. He completed his Master’s degree in the field of Social Anthropology from Oxford University in the year 1994.
Arnab Goswami’s stint in NDTV
Before being a part of NDTV, Arnab Goswami commenced his journalism career in The Telegraph at the city of Calcutta. But he worked with the daily for under a year. During the same year (1995), he shifted his career to broadcasting daily news at NDTV. He also worked on a program called ‘News Tonight’ for DD Metro. He was involved in the transitioning of NDTV 24/7 into the 24 hour slot in 1998. The Newshour show on NDTV was the longest running news analysis show from 1998 to 2003. Being a senior editor, he was responsible for the entire editorial content of the channel. He was also the host of Newsnight, another news analysis program on NDTV which won him an award for the Best News Anchor Asia in 2004, at the Asian Television Awards.
Arnab Goswami’s stint in Times Now
Loved and loathed equally, Goswami changed the game for news reporting and news analysis after he took over as the editor-in-chief and anchor for Times Now in 2006. In his own words, after the experience of 26/11, he decided that a journalist couldn’t afford to be objective and disjointed; he has to exercise his opinion and become a person of influence in order to bring out change. . In this program he has taken interview of many famous personalities like Parvez Musharraf, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Rahul Bajaj.
Post 2008, the Newshour aired at 9PM became deafeningly argumentative with Arnab arguing with the panelists and giving strong rebuttals. His interference and cutting down people from talking, invited criticisms. Nevertheless, because of Goswami’s playing to the gallery approach and cross-examining facts earned Times Now’ program ‘The Newshour’ the tag of being the most widely watched news program on television.
Goswami has called his style of journalism, a journalism of ‘opinion’ rather than being a product of PR exercise.
Resignation from Times Now (reason)
Arnab Goswami resigned as Editor-in-Chief of Times Now, on November 1, 2016. Though the concrete reason was not disclosed, he stated in a one-hour web conference to media persons that the ‘game has just begun’.
Launch of Republic TV
The TV news channel was launched as free-to-air channel with Goswami as the anchor, editor-in-chief, managing director and co-founder. In a mattr of one week, the channel was among the top 3 most watched English news channels in India.
Controversies
Arnab Goswami has often courted criticism for his allegedly over-the-top rhetoric in news hour debates. A section of media has constantly aired its views that Goswami often acts as the judge and orchestrates a media trial, with the panelists acting as jury. On May 26, 2017, the Supreme Court issued notice to ‘Republic TV’ to bring down the rhetoric, following MP Shashi Tharoor’s legal notice to the channel, where he alleged that the channel’s story that linked him (Tharoor) to his wife Sunanda Pushkar’s death. The Times Group also also issued a complaint against Goswami for infringement of intellectual property, breach of trust for using their material on Republic TV on May 6 and 8.
Arnab Goswami – Salary and Net Worth
The monthly salary of Arnab Goswami is above Rs 1 Crore, his annual earnings is above US $2 million. Arnab Goswami is a big and prestigious name in the media, who earns a net worth of 12 crore in INR.
Arnab Goswami – wife
Arnab Goswami is married to Pipi Goswami. The two became friends when they were studying at The Hindu College. Besides, she was a Bengali, she found it too communicate with most of her batchmates who knew Assamese. On the other hand, Arnab was familiar with both languages. It is said that she proposed him after she found him to be quite helpful and caring by nature. The two got married in the mid90s, after Arnab came back from the UK.
Arnab Goswami – trivia
Though he puts a no-nonsense approach in the media, in his personal life, he is known to be soft-spoken, humble and approachable. He has written a book called ‘Combating Terrorism – A Legal Challenge’. His one-liners ‘One Minute’, ‘You cannot run away from these tough questions’, and ‘The Nation Wants to Know’ are quite popular. There are numerous jokes and videos on the Internet carrying out memes on Goswami. There are a few Facebook pages called ‘Arnab Goswami jokes ‘ alluding to the fact that the news anchor is a newsmaker himself, playing judge even before the investigations are through. Nevertheless, there is no escaping the fact that Goswami has changed the rules of journalism in India, whether ones likes it or not.
