India is good at adopting franchise. The most popular reality shows on television are franchise of American originals. Now news channels are replicating the trend.
The niche created by Arnab Goswami as the face, voice, anchor and editorial head of Times Now is now a story of the past. Arnab in his new avatar is pushing aggressively his new channel Republic along this less trod, despised-and-still-liked path.
The brash and pugnacious style made so familiar by Arnab is a take off on Fox News. Fox made its currency by branding its anchors as opinionated and combative. It chose to challenge the moderate and liberal apostles of the old school journalism.
In India Arnab decided to cultivate a similar cult of journalism. He cocked a snook at his colleagues and challenged the established copy book norms of conservative news presentation.
The more the journalist tribe raised hue and cry about his style of operating the more mileage Arnab garnered in terms of TRP's.
His base of viewers were a captive audience who bayed for blood of studio guests. Arnab went along and did a mayhem.
Apparently his erstwhile employer, The Benett and Coleman Ltd., faced heat from somewhere high up and eased the star anchor out.
Arnab has now started his new innings at the Republic. It's tone is more raucous and rough. It embraces strident nationalism as before, but has become viciously belligerent and malicious. The reporting borders on yellow journalism. Sample the unbridled attack on Shashi Tharoor. He has got embroiled in a lawsuited for 'stealing' content from this previous employer, The Times Now.
It is a begining of a tumultous innings. Long ago he has thrown to the winds the polite fiction of being a middle of the road liberal journalist. Now he is a performer, who dabbles in the art of making a good profit from the days news.
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