No, Arnab Goswami has not written a book. Not yet!

But his lecture at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) moved us, well sort of. Because it was laced with humour, his early life experiences as a journalist and guess what, he also unveiled six principles of journalism the audience weren’t prepared for but he suggested budding journalists should follow. We’ll get to that in a while.

“You can love him, you can hate him but you just can’t ignore him.” IIMC’s Director General KG Suresh welcomed the nation’s most “objective” and “independent” journalist with these kind words. But not all the students seemed equally ecstatic on his arrival. Before his entry, as the emcee of the event requested the students to welcome Goswami with a “huge round of applause”, when he actually arrived, the applause was punctured by those booing him.

As we understood it, the students were not great fans of Goswami. Sample this conversation with a bunch of students:

Shruti: Are you fans of Arnab?

Bunch of IIMC students: We are Arnab haters!

Well, the conversation ended there. But our favourite news anchor is above all that. When Goswami took the dais, he began by being brutally honest with himself and the students. “I’m usually not invited to journalism schools. Because why would you invite someone to a school who has done everything wrong that a journalist is believed to be possibly doing,” he said to the full house of aspiring journalists.

But let’s move to the important part because the last bit of his lecture was the most interesting, and perhaps ironic at the same time. Here are the six principles of Arnab Goswami’s “journalism for the future”, as he put it.

First: Democratise (the media)

“There’s an entire industry of journalists that is held hostage to the tyranny of some corporate set-up, some political compulsion, some big wig answerability,” he said.

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We’re not sure how that explains the fact that Kerala’s NDA vice chairman and BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar happens to be the biggest investor in the “independent” Republic TV.

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Second: Federalise

Any guesses what it means? Well, his opinion about Lutyen’s media is well-known. He has always been vocal about it. At IIMC too, he didn’t stop short of pointing that out. “Why should five big news channels operating out of Delhi define the Indian news system and not 104 other regional news channels that have directly taken the news to the roots of India to every corner?”

“Federalise because the expose of the 71 children in Gorakhpur will not make the headlines.” Yes, federalise because the death of over 70 children in Gorakhpur made it to prime time on Republic TV only a little over 24 hours after the news broke. On the day of the tragedy, the channel stayed true to its “Nation first, no compromise” tagline when the issue of debate was singing of Vande Mataram.

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Third: Put nation first

No prices for guessing who came up with Republic TV’s one of the taglines, “Nation first, no compromise”.

“People say that I overdo the nationalism. I want to ask them, what is overdone nationalism? For me, the issue of national interest is in black and white.” That nationalism is debating over Vande Mataram when more than 70 children lost their lives due to lack of oxygen in Gorakhpur can be argued over elsewhere. But that said:

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Many students at IIMC said that they liked Goswami’s  “older version” and seemed more independent. However, Srishti Jaiswal, Radio and TV student at IIMC, thought Goswami was “disregarded” by the media for being a nationalist though adding that he needed to define his nationalism in a better way.

Fourth: Never be politically correct

“Why do they say don’t take a position? What has political correctness got us before 2010? What did political correctness in 63 years get us? One scam? One expose? One resignation?” he asked as he proudly claimed to have broken the Commonwealth Games scam in 2010.

We do not, however, think it is quite right to say that political correctness has not brought out exposes and scams into the public domain.

Well, there’s Bofors (1987), fodder scam (1996), hawala scam (1996), stock market scam (1992). And may be more.

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Fifth: Reopen and reinvestigate

Goswami revealed that he was working hard to reopen two stories– Bofors and Sunanda Pushkar’s death. “I promised to everyone, including Shashi Tharoor, that we will find out who murdered your wife,” he told the students and faculty as everyone broke into applause.

While this principle is a great advice for budding journalists, some students pointed out that the issues that he picked up did not resonate with them. “He (Goswami) wants to do exposé and create hype. To do sensational news,” Jitendra Kumar told Newslaundry. “I don’t want to do what he does.”

Sixth: Make India the media superpower of the world

With that principle, Goswami announced his foray into the international news scenario by 2018. “In 2018, Republic World will be India’s first entry into global news,” he said. Though he did not share any details regarding the 5 Ws and H. “I don’t know how, why, where the money is going to come from, what I’m going to do but I’ve only done things with conviction.”

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Needless to say, many students who came to attend the lecture left the hall with newfound respect for him. “We saw a different side of him,” said a student.

Those who were “Arnab haters” also thought differently of him, well kudos to his public speaking skills. “When Arnab came and interacted with us, we saw a different Arnab,” Mandeep Yadav, a student of Radio and TV journalism, told Newslaundry. He also agreed with Goswami’s “nation first” concept and added that the rat-race for TRPs should not impact the nationalist in a journalist. However, Sanchari Dasgupta, a student from the English Journalism department, said while national security was important, the need to dig into stories and bring out the truth drove her passion to become a journalist.

Speaking to Newslaundry, Srishti Sinha, a student at IIMC, thought that he was just putting up that version on screen for “TRPs” and was convinced that “whatever he’s doing is to sell the news.”

While many students were moved by Goswami’s lecture, some of them didn’t at all agree with his style of journalism. “I would like to imbibe the values that he shared with us but I don’t agree with everything that he says,” said Pallav Anand, also a Radio and TV journalism student.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @shrutimenon10.