The placement cell at Jamia Millia Islamia’s Mass Communication Research Centre, one of India’s premier Mass Communication colleges, has decided to “boycott” Republic TV in placement this year. The placement cell decided to boycott Arnab Goswami led Republic TV after the channel “misreported” the incident at the university, in which a man shoot a Jamia student from the Mass Communication department, who was protesting against the CAA.
According to the placement cell, Republic TV tried to portray the man as one of the Jamia students and changed its stance after contrary evidences emerged; the channel changed the narrative to protesters provoking people after the contrary evidences emerged.
“Initially, we had decided to invite Republic TV for the placement programme in college. We had sent a mail and had received a call back too. But at that time, we didn’t have a designated faculty member, so the process didn’t go through. But since we have seen the coverage of the [Thursday] incident, we have unanimously decided to not invite the channel now,” said Sadaf Zarreen, a Master’s student of Mass Communication and one of placement coordinators.
AJK center of Jamia is among the best Mass Communication colleges of the country, and offers Master in Mass Communication, Convergent Journalism, Development Communication, and Visual Effects and Animation, as well as one year PG Diploma courses in Broadcast Technology, Still Photography & Visual Communication, and in Acting. The institute is among the few in the country which offers Ph.D in various disciplines of Mass Communication.
The university also offers graduation course in Mass Communication. Jamia has maximum number of seats for any public Mass Communication university in the country. It has more than 300 total number of media students and students of the university will not get opportunity to get employed in the most watched TV channel of the country.
Republic TV was co-founded in May 2017 by Arnab Goswami and Rajeev Chandrashekhar, in 2018 Chandrashekhar resigned from the board after he officially joined the Bhartiya Janata Party. Republic TV as well as Republic Bharat are the most watched TV channels of the country, and therefore, employs a large number of media graduates.
The news media is a very small industry and there are thousands of colleges which offer course in various media streams. If the Jamia students boycott the placement, the company will find media graduates from any other college, and that too offering less salary, given the state of unemployment in the country.
But, the placement cell decided to boycott the channel for ideological reasons, as they do not agree with journalism and reporting of Republic TV. “We are students of journalism and we have been against the kind of reporting Republic TV does from the very beginning. How it targets students of universities, whether in JNU or Jamia, is a nightmare. After the events of 13 and 15 December, the channel launched propaganda against Jamia,” said Rishabh Jain, the placement coordinator of the class of convergent journalism.
But, there would be many students who agree with the ideology and journalism of Arnab Goswami but perhaps could not express the same, as the majority view is against Arnab’s brand of journalism. If the placement cell would have carried a secret vote, a good number of students might have voted in favour of Republic TV’s campus placement.
But, the tyranny and ideology of majority students prevailed in Jamia, and the Republic TV has been boycotted. This will impact the career of many students who would have had a bright career if placed in Republic, as it is the most popular and well-paying channel of the country.