‘Debate is in danger,’ says Sambit Patra as India Today’s guest anchor. We agree

As if anchors who toed the party line were not enough, we now have party spokespersons acting as anchors on India Today. The channel invites ‘guest anchors’ from political parties on certain weekends because, you know, journalists bhi insaan hote hain and they want their weekends off on some days at least. To this end, India Today has had Congress’ Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Babul Supriyo and, of course, Sambit Patra, who has, umm, made his mark as a party spokesperson.

Last night, Patra graced India Today‘s studio as a guest anchor to discuss whether a united Opposition poses a real challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Patra begins with a pledge of being neutral and giving everyone on the panel a chance to speak. He said he is the most “unbiased anchor in the world” like a 100 times. Needless to say that neither was he neutral nor did he let anyone speak.

At one point, he said, “Debate is in danger.” We couldn’t agree enough. With Patra posing as a news anchor, TV news debate is indeed in a critical state. Vital signs are unstable and abnormal, and death may be imminent.