TOI--Trash of India

The standard of Times of India is deteriorating day by day, especially their website. The highly respected newspaper is slowly turning into the biggest "Page 3" newspaper.

Firstly they are very very lazy in updating their website. Rediff is much better at doing this. Then, they don't proofread their website at all. The website is strewn with spelling errors.

Coming up with witty attractive headlines has been a hallmark of TOI. Now they use it either to sensationalize issues or to make something sound more sleazy than it is.

I have to give the title of "worst journalists" to the sports journalists of TOI. It is as if they write only to instigate and provoke criticism! TOI is totally biased against Greg Chappell for one. From day one they have been publishing articles saying how haughty and vain Chappell is and how despite all the hype (which by the way they have contributed in creating) of him coaching the team he doesn't really have any insight into how the Indian team plays and how the Indian audience reacts. The problem with our sports media is that while the team needs to take it slow and take small steps at a time, the media wants instant results and Indian team fortunes to just magically brighten overnight and stay that way! When Greg Chappell voiced his dismay at the media's negativeness when he was repeatedly asked the same questions about "lack of killer instinct" and "does india have the edge" and "world cup 2007", TOI promptly wrote an article about how Chappell is unaware of the psyche of the India media and the audience, claiming that as the media makes superstars out of these players they have every right to expect a lot from them every time and criticize every failure. Its time TOI brought more neutral sports journalists to their team. What is even more appalling is that the same paper manages to publish articles providing orthogonal views on the same subject 2-3 days apart! There is an article bashing Ganguly, then 2 days later there is one singing laurels about how he has brought the team up and how he's right for the job. Sehwag, TOI's poster boy till late, has suddenly been admonished for his whacky ways and irresponsible batting at the top of the order. Kaif and Yuvraj who have always been criticized by TOI as players who have been given too many chances and are only brilliant on paper and not in the middle, have suddenly been placed on the pedestal saying Kaif is captaincy material and Yuvraj has found his niche and how the two "have contributed critically to so many victories"! Either sports journalists of TOI have the habit of changing loyalties everyday (they shouldn't have any loyalties in the first place), or they just simply ignore articles written by their colleagues. Its time they exchanged notes before publishing such drivel!

I don't even want to comment on the sleaze fest on the bottom half of the TOI main page online. I fail to understand how Indians being kinky in the bedroom and Britney Spears's exploits are worthy of the front page. TOI is once again falling into that urban trap, where it thinks it can cater only to the metros and not care about what the rest of the country is doing. Writing about Hollywood gossip and European models is going to satisfy only a miniscule portion of their readers, but TOI simply does not get it. What's with the various features on babes from different corners of the world? They may be there, and they may be doing what TOI claims they are, but why is this front page news?? If TOI wants to cater to an adult and mature audience, they should maintain a separate website and advertise it the way that it is supposed to be advertised. Putting "June babes" and "Why India cannot have a Jolie" is just a cheap way of increasing their hits, being totally insensitive to how accessible their website is online. Since TOI is so hell bent on proving that we're in the 21st century and considers itself the harbinger of modern society, it should realize that with modernism has also come unwanted access to information. Nothing is preventing a 13 year old trying to develop a news-reading habit from coming to TOI website in honest search of news and getting hooked on to the page 3 drivel they proudly display. User discretion is an easy excuse to give, but not even the chief editor of TOI can look over his children's shoulders all day to monitor what they're seeing online. The press should realize its own responsibility and at least not aim at distracting the unknowing or unexpecting reader. If the content is meant for adults, I'm sure a person who wants to access such information will not mind clicking on one more link and creating a login and password for accessing it. While such things may still not prevent children from accessing these pages, at least they won't be in-your-face and not divert readers who do not read TOI for such stuff. Try putting the same sleaze in the main issue of TOI (not in Bombay times) and see how readers react!