Popular news anchor Arnab Goswami launched Republic TV with a lot of fanfare.
In the wake of the recent political violence involving RSS and CPI-M activists in Kerala, Goswami has been desperately trying to portray the South Indian state in a really bad light. He had recently hosted a debate on 'the nation wants to know who is behind these political murders and can the Left be tolerant to the merciless butchery of RSS workers in the state of Kerala?'
However, Goswami's attempt to target Kerala has irked thousands of Keralites across the globe who took to social media to protest against channel's bias. The Facebook page of Republic TV's 4-star rating dropped to 2.7 within hours.
At the time of reporting, out of 1,07,000 reviews, 59,000 users have given one-star rating to the channel, while 40,000 have given five stars.
"Any digital medium that tries to gain TRP in the name of nationalistic views just by blabbering utter lies and false news to break the harmony among people deserve to be at the bottom of ratings." comments Rinil Kuriakose. Some are of the opinion that they are forced to give 1-star rating for the channel just because there isn't an option to rate less than that.
Few others have warned the journalist not to play with Malayalees anymore. "Arnab don't try to play with malayali's. ....this not UP or Gujarat. ... [sic]," comments Santhosh Mannattil. Social media attack by the people from the South Indian state is not new. Amit Shah, Maria Sharapova, Mitchell Johnson, Pakistan's General Asim Bajwa, Hansika Motwani have faced the brunt of Malayalis before.
Meanwhile, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has earlier filed a defamation case against Goswami and Republic TV. He had even sought an injunction on the news anchor's massive coverage against him in connection with the Sunanda Pushkar case. The Delhi High Court recently directed Goswami to respect the MP's right to silence.
Here are some of the social media reaction and rating on Republic Channel's Facebook page:
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