Republic TV wrongly targets ABP reporter as ‘goon’, issues apology

On January 10, RepublicTV issued an on-air apology to ABP‘s Jainendra Kumar at the end of his prime-time debate. This came a day after Republic TV‘s commander-in-chief Arnab Goswami was all fire and furry after one of his channel’s reporters, Shivani Gupta, was heckled and chased by some people in the crowd gathered at the #YuvaHunkaarRally.

In a haste to name and shame those who did this, Republic TV circled the faces of those visible in the footage without carrying out due diligence on who among the crowd around Gupta actually heckled her. Republic TV’s Twitter handle even announced that Goswami is going to “put out videos circling the pictures of the vulgar thugs who tried to intimidate” Gupta.

As it turns out, one of the faces encircled was that of ABP reporter Jainendra Kumar, who is one of the prominent ABP reporters tracking political developments in Delhi.

This got ABP reporters questioning Republic TV on Twitter.

According to sources at ABP, Kumar had gone to check whether Gupta was in trouble as she was being mobbed soon after Gujarat legislator Jignesh Mevani left the rally.

Interestingly, Republic TV has not uploaded last night’s debate that went with the hashtag #JigneshFlopShow yet on its website or YouTube channel. This short will be updated as and when they do so.

While Goswami questioned the “Lutyens” media for its silence yesterday, some journalists have come out in support of Gupta.

In its apology, RepublicTV said, “On the debate yesterday, we inadvertently circled visual of a reporter from ABP News, Jainendra Kumar, while running pictures of our News Editor, Shivani Gupta, being targeted by individuals present at the Jignesh Mevani rally.” The clarification stated that visuals indicative of Kumar being the heckler was an unintentional oversight by the channel’s video editor.

RepublicTV also stated that their apology was issued “as per the highest norms of corrigendum and clarification on such editorial matters” and added that this was a follow up on ABP News‘ behest.

To which, ABP News had this to say.

(This short has been updated.)