The purpose of this petition is to bring to the notice of the content editors/contributors of www.ibnlive.com, the recent ‘not-so-pleasant’ changes to the content that the site has had over the past few weeks.

Examples of such content:

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/the-20-best-gifs-of-february-will-have-you-in-splits/454455-79.html​

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/pure-evil-man-films-hilarious-video-of-children-slipping-on-ice/454414-79.html​

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/26-ways-indian-parents-can-embarrass-you-in-front-of-your-friends-strangers-and-family-and-basically-make-you-wish-you-werent-born/454468-79.html

 

A lot of people signing this petition, would either have been ardent readers of ibnlive.com- the online portal for CNN-IBN or would have at least opened this site once in their lifetime to be updated on current affairs, breaking news or simply to read news. I happen to be one of them, with www.ibnlive.com being Ctrl+R’d (refreshed) number of times, during the day, to have fresh news. However, over the last few weeks, the content on www.ibnlive.com has gone from bad to worse. The standard of content on ibnlive has dropped so much that the app(s) has been uninstalled from all my devices. However, old habits die hard and still when one gets to office, you open your web browser and type in www.ibnlive.com and then it hits you. This is no longer the same.

In their own words, "IBNLive.com is the online arm of GBN with hard news as its core offering and interactivity as its key component. Along with a plethora of mobile- and multimedia-enabled content, IBNLive is a multi-platform offering that, for the first time, provides viewers/users an opportunity to contribute to the news process and interact with editors and reporters. Manned 24x7, IBNlive.com is powered not just by CNN-IBN journalists but also by Network18's team of over 1,000 news professionals."

A few questions here:

1.Is the site really ‘powered’ by CNN-IBN journalists? Or does the actual ‘news’ get lost in Chinese whispers?

2.Weren’t the grammar and spelling mistakes enough, that now you have decided to jump into ‘BuzzFeed’ style news?

3.Anyone with a days’ worth of time, can generate funny memes, yes it is creative, but do we need to trample over quality news?

4. Does this have anything to do with the launch of www.news18.com?

5.Does www.ibnlive.com really intend to keep this sort of content? If the content editors and contributors do, please let us know. We will just change our daily habits.

 

Ideally, www.ibnlive.com shouldn’t kill the business of sites like BuzzFeed and BoredPanda. If you want to give India-oriented content like these sites give in a global context, start a separate site. Or let a creative entrepreneur do it, maybe someday BuzzFeed or BoredPanda will buy the said startup for a jaw-dropping figure and you could put that news up as ‘breaking news’. What say?

 

Also, Mr. Sardesai, could you please once in a while open your site on a laptop or on a tablet and see what is being uploaded. Do it over breakfast like most of us or when you get to office, sounds good no?