Republic TV founder Arnab Goswami on Monday night targeted his former colleagues including his ex-boss Rajdeep Sardesai. Goswami lost his cool and attacked Sardesai and Barkha Dutt after a guest on his TV channel asked him to introspect about his role as an honest journalist.
The guest told him. “I want to throw a bigger question. I want Smita Prakash (of ANI), you and all the media as a whole to introspect. Today, you are using the word ‘Lutyens’ media.’ There are right-wing media, there are left-wing media…. There was a Twitter attack on India Today’s Rahul Kanwal and they went on to call Rajdeep Sardesai an ISIS terrorist…Today your channel is being looked at as right-wing media.”
Goswami interrupted his guest and launched a tirade against Sardesai, who was his boss during his time at NDTV. The Republic TV founder said, “Sundar, that’s in your mind. That’s how people like you would like to look at it. Nobody looks at it like that…There are two kinds of media, you’re for India or against India. That’s the only divide in the country.”
He then shifted his attention to Rajdeep Sardesai, “Unlike you, we are not petty. And hence, I will not go on about false reporting. Everybody in the country knows who did false reporting, in the Sohrabuddin case. Everybody in the country knows who put out an apology note in the court in the Sohrabuddin case.
“In the Sohrabuddin case, I am told that there’s some proof that has come out. That some journalists who are claiming right now to be at the forefront of investigative reporting, actually put out a quote apology in the Sohrabuddin case. The nation would want to know who these people are. I don’t know, I am not taking their names. But, if people who put out private apologies have different public stances, then I call them God-forsaken hypocrites.”
Goswami continued, “So if it’s Hafiz Saeed’s favourite journalists or the journalist, who apologised in the Sohrabuddin case, let them not teach us journalism.”
Sardesai faced incessant trolling from the members of the BJP IT Cell on Monday after Bar and Bench website reported that he was acquitted by a Hyderabad court in November last year after he issued an unconditional apology for false reporting in Sohrabuddin’s alleged encounter killing case.
By Hafiz Saeed’s favourite journalist, Goswami was taking a jibe at his former colleague Barkha Dutt, who was once praised by the Lashkar chief in 2016. Reacting to Saeed’s public praise, Dutt had then tweeted, “Repulsed by Hafiz Saeed trying propaganda points on my work. None of your business. You’e a terrorist. That you’re free is Pakistan’s shame.”
Goswami on Monday night alleged that his colleagues were attacked by angry students on the Jamia campus.