Arnab Ranjan Goswami (born 7 March 1973) is an Indian television journalist and news anchor, the managing director and editor-in-chief of Republic Media Network. As the presenter of The Newshour on Times Now he created the loud, confrontational style of prime-time debate that came to dominate Indian news television, and in 2017 he launched his own channel, Republic TV. He is among the most watched and the most criticised figures in the Indian media.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Arnab Ranjan Goswami |
| Born | 7 March 1973, Guwahati, Assam |
| Age | 53 |
| State | Assam |
| Education | Hindu College, University of Delhi (B.A. in sociology); St Antony’s College, Oxford (M.A. in social anthropology) |
| Occupation | Television journalist, news anchor, media entrepreneur |
| Known for | The Newshour (Times Now); Republic TV; Republic Bharat |
| Spouse | Samyabrata Ray Goswami |
| Children | 1 |
Early Life
He was born in Guwahati into an Assamese family with a long involvement in public life. His father, Colonel Manoranjan Goswami, served in the Army and later stood for Parliament as a candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party; his paternal grandfather was a lawyer and Congress leader, and his maternal grandfather, Gaurisankar Bhattacharyya, a communist who was Leader of the Opposition in Assam.
Because of his father’s postings he went to school in several cities, finishing in Delhi and Jabalpur.
Education
He read sociology at Hindu College in Delhi and took a master’s degree in social anthropology at St Antony’s College, Oxford, in 1994, on a scholarship. He was later a visiting fellow at Cambridge.
Career
NDTV
He began at The Telegraph in Calcutta and within a year moved to television, joining NDTV in 1995. He rose to be a senior editor and anchored a nightly news analysis programme.
Times Now
In 2006 the Times Group launched an English news channel, Times Now, with Goswami as editor-in-chief. Its early ratings were poor. His coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008, on air for long hours with open anger at the authorities, changed that.
The Newshour, his debate programme at nine each evening, filled the screen with as many as a dozen guests, whom he questioned, interrupted and lectured. “The nation wants to know,” his refrain, entered everyday speech. The channel led the English news ratings for years, and others copied the format. He resigned in November 2016.
Republic
In May 2017 he launched Republic TV, in which he is the principal shareholder, followed in 2019 by a Hindi channel, Republic Bharat, and later by channels in other languages. Republic went straight to the top of the ratings. Its tone is strongly nationalist and broadly supportive of the government of Narendra Modi.
Criticism and Controversy
- **Style:** critics, including many fellow journalists, hold that his programmes replace reporting with shouting and trial by television. His months-long coverage in 2020 of the death of the actor Sushant Singh Rajput was widely condemned.
- **Arrest:** on 4 November 2020 the Maharashtra police arrested him in a reopened case concerning the suicide in 2018 of an interior designer who had said Republic owed him money. The Supreme Court granted him bail a week later, criticising the state for targeting him. He denies the allegation.
- **Ratings case:** in 2020 the Mumbai police alleged that some channels, Republic among them, had paid households to inflate viewing figures. The channel denied it and called the case a vendetta.
His admirers see him as a journalist who took on an entrenched establishment and gave voice to ordinary viewers’ anger.
Personal Life
He is married to Samyabrata Ray, also a journalist and a co-owner of Republic, whom he met at college. They have a son and live in Mumbai. He has written a book, Combating Terrorism: The Legal Challenge.
He is one of several nationally known media figures from Assam, a state whose cultural icons include Bhupen Hazarika.
Featured image: Arnab Goswami in November 2011. Photo by User:Abhinav619, licensed under CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
