The Nation’s Times Now’s predator editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, found himself on the wrong end of his own channel’s hashtag mania, after he suffered a throat infection before an all important Newshour debate. Within minutes of Goswami’s inability to screech and shout on the program, Times Now began to trend #ArnabShamed.

Times Now’s journalists and program directors have defended their actions and said that they were only following precedents set by the channel prior to the incident. “When Team India had a bad day at the office, one that they couldn’t do much about, we trended #ShamedInSydney. Going by that logic, it was only right that we trended #ArnabShamed when his throat went sore just before an all crucial Newshour debate featuring Sanjay Jha, Sambit Patra, The Ashutosh and other high profile bunnies, irrespective of whether it was actually his fault or not,” a Times Now journalist told The UnReal Times.

“Can we be in denial?” echoed another Times Now journalist. “Let’s face it, Arnab should have known that this is an all-important, crucial debate with all his bunnies at one place. He should have known that lakhs of people would be watching him and should have been responsible enough to stay away from cold and flu germs. Why should he be insulated from blame? By having a bad day at the office, he has let not only himself, but also the channel and ultimately, the nation down,” the journalist added.

“DID ARNAB LET TIMES NOW DOWN WHEN IT NEEDED HIM THE MOST?” the Ticker on Times Now screamed all day, while flames leapt around it.

In the lukewarm debate that ensued over ISRO’s new research project with backup Newshour anchor Anand Narasimhan, Rocket Science expert Arbaaz Khan defended Arnab, saying, “No one deliberately wants to lose their voice before such a debate.” When the topic suddenly cut across to a revelation about India’s ancient applications of trigonometry, the flustered panel went silent, while all-in-one expert Shobhaa De coolly began to explain a tangential equation without missing a beat.

Meanwhile, Twitter analysts analyzing the hashtag #ArnabShamed, traced a bulk of tweets with the hashtag #ArnabShamed, to the accounts of Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt.