Celeb news anchors and the Sushant Singh Rajput case

MUMBAI : The Sushant Singh Rajput unnatural death case is bringing many celebrity TV news anchors and their stances out to the forefront.  These celebrity anchors love to be different, to stand out from the pack.

Arnab Goswami and Times Now’s Navika Kumar have clearly stated their intent: they and their teams are going to play investigator and interrogator.  Their day and night hammering at trying to get to the bottom of what really happened to Sushant Singh Rajput has won them fans from amongst the common people who believe that a lot is s amiss about the way in which the talented actor died.

It has also won them derision from the scorners – the Lutyens media crowd, so-called because of their attitudes, not their location – who have said that there’s a media trial - a kangaroo court - going on. These and the going-against-the-tide celebs and celeb journos have been posting on social media how the instant-coffee theory propounded by the Mumbai police that SSR committed suicide – before any investigation was conducted - is right.

Amongst these is Barkha Dutt who spoke to a supposed psychologist-cum-counselor Susan Walker who broke all client confidentially norms and revealed that SSR was supposedly “depressesd, suffered from bipolar disorder and hypomania.”

Barkha  was immediately slammed by people better informed than her and other psychologists who reminded both that they were  trying to defame an individual who cannot defend himself and they were breaking all professional ethics. In fact calls have gone out to investigate why the two took this step. Since then, Barkha has thankfully stayed away from any reports on SSR.

Another celeb journo Rajdeep Sardesai – who has erred often in the stance he has taken before on issues and has been shamed by people who disagreed with him and proved him wrong – also has been toe-ing the party line in his coverage of the SSR case. Recenlty, he invited the SSR family lawyer Vikas Singh to his news show and immediately asked him why he was resorting to trying  the prime suspect Rhea Chakraborthy by the media.

Singh’s repartee was a pure gem.

“I did not ask to be on your channel. It is you who have been chasing and forcing me to come on air. . I don't want to talk to you. I don’t want a trial by media.”

And he followed his statement with intent, he walked out of the interview.

Rajdeep lamely continued to plead with him and tried to ask him a question but Singh had already left, leaving the anchor looking sheepish.

This led to a lot of social media chatter stating that “Rajdeep and Insult go hand in hand.”