Nation wants to know: Arnab Goswami gets a legal notice for the phrase

Goswami says the phrase belonged to the people and not to any media group

Who owns “nation wants to know”? That seems to be the question that will probably be answered by the courts. The catch-phrase popularised by former Times Now anchor, Arnab Goswami has become a bone of contention now.

According to a report in the newspaper Mint, Times Group has sent a legal notice to Arnab Goswami asking him not to use the phrase on his own news channel “Republic TV”. Arnab Goswami’s new channel has been in the news ever since it was announced late last year but its much anticipated launch has been delayed due to unspecified reasons.

Times Now is a channel owned by the Times Group and they contend that “nation wants to know” is their intellectual property. Goswami became synonymous with the use of this phrase.

Arnab has released an audio clip on YouTube informing people that he has received this notice. He has not revealed the name of the group that has sent him the notice. “A media group has sent me a six-page letter threatening me with imprisonment if I ever use the phrase ‘Nation wants to know’. They say that they own the phrase.”

He further explained that the phrase belongs to “you, to me and to all of us, every citizen of this country. Every Indian has a right to use that phrase. And this phrase comes from the heart. Every Indian, through his or her questioning spirit, can use the phrase Nation Wants to Know.”

He says the media group has been trying to delay the launch of Republic TV.
 

“ARG Outliers had filed for trademark for these and similar phrases which were already filed for and extensively used for years by Times Now. We have responded with a standard caution notice. He (Arnab) is just trying to gain soundbytes from it,” a spokesperson for the Times Network informed Mint.

In the run-up to the launch of the show, Goswami has been travelling to various colleges across India, talking about his own “style of journalism”. Republic TV is owned by Arnab Goswami’s  own company, ARG Outlier Media. NDA MP Rajeev Chandrashekhar is the biggest investor in Republic TV. 

In an interview to Man's World, Goswami hinted about why he left Times Now.

I don’t believe in journalism in which a film director can call up a media proprietor and then shivers go down the spine of the media proprietor. I have taken on a lot of people in this country. I have broken a lot of scams. I have taken on powerful people and terrorist groups. And I feel truly sad when some film director calls up a media proprietor and says, ‘Why is this channel asking questions about me, and about why Pakistani artists are acting in my film?’ and the media proprietor gets scared. That’s very unfortunate.

Man's World disclosed that they had been asked to avoid questions about the ownership structure of Republic TV.