Why Indiatimes.com sucks !!

I have been delaying this post for too long. In vain i waited for India's best known publishing house to improve its standards. On the contrary, the quality of journalism has really gone down. I will not comment on TOI in this post ( thats another story altogether), but i have to make comments on Indiatimes.com .

For a website that calls itself India's most popular website, the standard of the contents is absymally low. They rely so much on sensationalism that they come up with headlines which have little to do with the actual Story. See these links - Tendulkar Should play for team or quit and Tendulkar or Dhoni : Take your pick . When you go throught the stories you will realize that headlines are completely misleading. In case of the first article, Ranatunga has mentioned the names of all the senior players and yet only Sachin gets the Headlines. Nowhere in the headline is it mentioned that It is a comment by Ranatunga. And again, just because Ranatunga has said it, does it in any way justify Indiatimes putting up this headline ? This is a case of bad journalism at its worst.

Same goes for the second story too. The entire story is on Dhoni and Tendulkar's name has been mentioned only once. And yet from the headline you might be forgiven for thinking that Tendulkar is suffering from a massive loss in popularity. What were these guys thinking ? The answer is that this is the only way they will make sure that the reader will visit the article. Its quite easy for Indiatimes actually. For ages now, they have been putting up misleading headlines.

They also advertise their photo gallery very prominently on the website. 9 out of 10 times, the photo is of some semi-naked girl. I guess they know the pulse of the average (male ) visitor very well. But, are such tactics justified for "India's most popular website" . Here are some more gems from today's site - Kinky Shoes , 20 wild babes you will never want tamed . Hats off to Indiatimes , Their contents have touched a new low. In contrast rediff.com and yahoo.com carry much more sensible stories .

Well, in a way i am glad that they put up the Tendulkar headlines. It allowed me to speak out much more passionatly about the issue. From now on, it is out of my Favorites list. I really do hope more people follow suit .