Arnab Ranjan Goswami is an Indian right-wing news anchor and journalist. He is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Republic Media Network, a conservative news organisation oriented towards Hindu nationalism.

Before Republic TV, Goswami was the editor-in-chief and a news anchor of Times Now and ET Now, from 2006 to 2016. Previously, he had also served stints at NDTV and The Telegraph. On Times Now, he anchored The Newshour, a live debate at 9 pm (IST) weekdays, which propelled him to widespread fame. He also hosted a special television programme Frankly Speaking with Arnab. In November 2016, Goswami resigned as editor-in-chief of Times Now. His news channel Republic TV was launched in May 2017.

Family and education 

Family

Goswami was born in Guwahati, Assam on 7 March 1973 in an Assamese family of Manoranjan Goswami and Suprabha Gain-Goswami. His father, Manoranjan Goswami joined the Indian Army in the early 1960s and retired as a colonel after serving in the army for nearly 30 years. Upon retirement he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and was the party's unsuccessful candidate in 1998 Lok Sabha Polls for the Guwahati constituency. He wrote various columns, books and was the recipient of the Asam Sahitya Sabha Award in 2017. Arnab's mother, Suprabha Gain-Goswami is an author.

His paternal grandfather Rajani Kanta Goswami was a lawyer. His maternal grandfather, Gaurisankar Bhattacharyya, was an elected legislator from the Communist Party of India and served as the leader of the opposition in Assam for many years.

Goswami's maternal uncle, Siddhartha Bhattacharya is a member of the Assam Legislative Assembly for the BJP from Gauhati East constituency. He headed the Assam unit of BJP until 2015.

Goswami is married to Samyabrata Ray Goswami. She is also a journalist and a co-owner of Republic TV. The couple has a son, Che Goswami, named after the revolutionary Che Guevara.

Education

An army officer's son, Goswami attended schools across various parts of India. He completed his 10th grade of school from the Mount St Mary's School, New Delhi and his 12th grade from Kendriya Vidyalaya in Jabalpur Cantonment. Goswami has a Bachelor's degree in Sociology from the Hindu College in Delhi University. In 1994 Goswami completed his Master's in Social Anthropology from St. Antony's College, at Oxford University, where he was a Felix Scholar.

In the year 2000, Arnab was a Visiting DC Pavate Fellow at the International Studies Department at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University.

Career

The Telegraph and NDTV

Goswami started his career with The Telegraph in Kolkata, as a journalist; less than a year later, he moved to Delhi and joined NDTV.

Goswami was a part of NDTV from 1996 to 2006. At NDTV, he anchored daily newscasts including News Tonight, a programme telecast on DD Metro. Newsnight, hosted by Goswami, won him an award for the Best News Anchor of Asia 2004 in the 2004 Asian Television Awards.

Times Now

In 2006, Goswami left NDTV to join the newly launched Times Now news channel, as its editor-in-chief.

His show The Newshour was aired at 9 pm with live news coverage, and featured notable personalities such as Parvez Musharraf. He also hosted a special programme, Frankly Speaking with Arnab, which has featured personalities such as Benazir Bhutto and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, retired head of state of the Tibetan Government in Exile, the Dalai Lama and former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Goswami was the first television anchor to interview Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he took office in 2014.

Goswami resigned as editor-in-chief of Times Now on 1 November 2016 citing editorial differences, lack of journalistic freedom and newsroom politics. He hosted the last edition of his flagship show The Newshour Debate, a fortnight later. Incidentally, the Newshour has been subject to an ongoing investigation by Ofcom, the UK government-approved regulatory authority for broadcasting, during the months of August and September and it went on to hold Times Now guilty of violating the impartiality clause of its broadcast code.

Republic TV

Republic TV was funded in part by Asianet, which in turn was primarily funded by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a then-independent member of Rajya Sabha who had intricate links with the Bharatiya Janata Party and was vice-chairman of the National Democratic Alliance in Kerala. Rajeev later announced his resignation as the director on the board of ARG Outlier Asianet News Pvt Ltd, the company that owns Republic TV. He stated that he took this decision since he officially joined the BJP and it was in the best interest of Republic TV's brand and team that he no longer serve on the board. Among other major investors were Goswami, his wife, educationists Ramdas Pai and Ramakanta Panda—all of whom invested through SARG Media Holding Private Ltd.

Goswami was the managing director as well the Editor-in-Chief; the channel was launched on 6 May 2017 as a free-to-air channel. Chitra Subramaniam was roped in as the editorial adviser and numerous personas associated with Times Now in various roles joined the channel.

In May 2019, Goswami bought a chunk of shares held by Rajeev Chandrasekhar-promoted Asianet News Media & Entertainment to gain near full ownership. Later Republic Media Network released a statement stating that Goswami personally owns over 82 per cent stake in Republic TV and that the company also owns 99 per cent equity in the downstream digital entity that controls the digital assets of the network.

Resignation from Editors Guild

In the wake of the 2020 Palghar mob lynching, on 21 April 2020, during his live show, Arnab resigned from Editors Guild. Arnab accused Shekhar Gupta of leading the compromise on journalism for not speaking on incidents like this. Nagpur police registered a first information report against Arnab Goswami over a complaint filed by Maharashtra Power Minister Nitin Raut. The FIR filed by the police include charges of giving provocation with intent to cause riot, promoting enmity between two groups on grounds of religion or race, deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs and defamation under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Book
In 2002, Goswami wrote a book: Combating Terrorism: The Legal Challenge.

Reception

Goswami and his style of journalism, has been subject to massive criticism.

He has been noted for his opinionated reporting in support of Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindutva across a wide spectrum of situations including by uncritical reproduction of government narratives, avoiding criticism of figures from the ruling party (BJP) and presenting political opponents in a negative light. Goswami has been also linked with the popularisation of the neologisms – Urban Naxal and Anti-national – to denote those critical to right wing sentiments or the government, in a bid to evoke hyper-nationalism among the audience. Attempts to quell communal tensions through irresponsible reporting containing religious overtones have been alleged.

Republic TV has been since compared to North Korean media for its extreme pro-government affinity and muzzling of dissent; noted political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot and journalist Dexter Filkins have compared it to Fox News, an American TV channel that practices biased reporting in favour of the Republican Party. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, over Business Standard, noted it to be a "noisy, chaotic place where coherent debate without shouting, screaming and name-calling is impossible"; others have noted of its shows to be a "battle of babble", judgmental, brash and hawkish. Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, in a Foreign Policy article, noted its coverage of the 2019 India-Pakistan conflict, to put jingoism ahead of journalism.

Fact checkers have documented him, and his channels to have propagated misinformation and disinformation, on multiple occasions.

In popular culture

Barely Speaking with Arnub, an Indian mock comedy-talk-show produced by The Viral Fever spoofs Goswami's on-air personality with Biswapati Sarkar playing a caricaturized version of him.

Honors

Goswami had won the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism (TV) in 2008.

On 8 December 2019, he was unanimously elected as the President of News Broadcasting Federation, a newly formed federation of about 78 channels, which sought to replace NBSA.