The Big Picture: Remembering the Real Jack Thompson

[Netrigan]

Bob is frustrated that people are comparing his friend to the videogame boogeyman and so creates a video to tell people to stop it. Shouldn't it be known information that the only person really being compared to Jack is his friend Anita and that's why this is being made?

Instead, he does it in a sneakily subtle manner.

Hitler invaded Poland with more subtlety.

Yeah, that's right, the Hitler Card, it's been played. Deal. Journalistic Ethics.

But joking aside, he's taken a very public stance on the issue. There's no attempt to hide any aspect of this story. He doesn't need to annotate it every single time, especially with a video aimed pretty squarely at people creating threads in The Escapist message boards.

Keep in mind, I could easily play the Total Biscuit card and declare that since MovieBob is not a Video Game Journalist (he's a movie reviewer and a commentator on video games among other things) and therefore isn't bound by Journalistic Ethics... just like all the YouTubers whose conflicts of interest are outside the boundaries of Journalistic Ethics.

It's an Op-Ed piece. He's not pursuing some hidden agenda. He's upfront about exactly where his allegiances lie. His ethical ducks are in a row IMO.

 

[Netrigan]

And MovieBob is a joke.

His Sucker Punch review is the greatest piece of comedy ever inadvertently written

 

[Lightknight]

I don't know. I don't see any of Nathan's actions as particularly egregious. He didn't lie, he didn't misrepresent things. He pointed out in one article that he (and the rest of the staff) liked her game.

A game in which he is credited in and had been credited in for nearly a year before his article. Jim Sterling, for example, is amazing at disclosing relationships. I completely respect his journalistic integrity even if I think he came down on the wrong side of the issue here. He attempted to recuse himself from the Zoe issue and once he was fully roped into it was quick to preface any statement by saying he was friends with her. So disagree with him or not, he at least did everything by the books.

I would do that for a friend. I think most people in the world would do that for a friend.

Then I hope you're not a journalist or that you fully disclose that relationship.

Plenty of other outlets do it and no one seems to be super upset about it.

That's because plenty of real journalists actually disclose the relationships in their articles. Failure to disclose relationships frequently blows up in the news here and there. It's just that the gaming industry is actually relatively small. So one journalist writing on one newspaper doesn't matter so much but one gaming journalist on a major site is a significantly larger proportion of that industry. Throw that together with a dozen or more journalists and you've got a full blown scandal which is what happened.

And it isn't just games. I mean, how many jobs have you gotten because someone put in a good word? Friendship and work are closely tied. I don't see what either of them did as a particularly immoral thing. Well, okay, she cheated on her boyfriend, but that's no more important than Tiger Woods' infidelity...

Advocating and putting a good word in for people you know is not the same as reporting and journalism. It is standard journalism 101 to disclose relationships. This is a well known industry standard. Why do you think Kotaku's Stephen Tortila came out with a statement claiming that Nathan did not have a relationship with her until after the article? If it wasn't a breach of ethics his response would have just been "so what?"

Unfortunately, it turns out that his public statement ended up being wrong. Whether with him being deceived or deceiver or something else (like Nathan convincing himself that making out doesn't constitute a relationship).

Are you somehow against ethics in journalism? Journalists can literally control the population and suppress information in a major way. Conflict of Interests in particular can lead to an environment controlled by nepotism and cronyism in a way that colors all reporting through a specific lens that can seriously harm our ability as consumers to know what the truth actually is.

You may be interested to read up on Journalism and ethics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards

Conflicts of interest are particularly vital when people place themselves in a fiduciary role. A role in which they are set up to be trusted and even relied on.

For journalists, conflicts of interests don't prevent them from reporting on the issue. All they have to do is either run the story as an opinion piece or disclose the conflict of interest in the article. That's all that's required to side step the problem.

Take Jim for example, he's done voice acting in some games. Any time he brings up anything surrounding that game he immediately discloses that fact which is the proper way for a journalist to handle it.

What's not appropriate is to report on a serious story defaulting on the side of someone you're intimate with to bash the group on the other side. Or, at least it's not OK to do it without disclosing it but really, that one should probably have been a self-recusal rather than mere disclosure. Hand the story off to someone who isn't romantically involved with the plaintiff.

Yeah, trouble is that one issue was a great seething torrent of bile and twattery and the other was a tiny piteous squeak.

And that isn't the fault of the gaming press, it's the fault of the people directly engaged in spreading the twattery because it fit their priorities to do so.

I remember it, because I was involved in the arguments right when they were happening.

Media has been complicit either in spreading "twattery" as you say or in failing to report on the corruption side of thing. So I wouldn't dismiss them wholesale. Some media outlets at least acknowledge it and try to personally address it (like the Escapist, for example) but few to none of them actually cover the journalism ethics complaints.

 

[Lightknight]

Bob is frustrated that people are comparing his friend to the videogame boogeyman and so creates a video to tell people to stop it. Shouldn't it be known information that the only person really being compared to Jack is his friend Anita and that's why this is being made?

Instead, he does it in a sneakily subtle manner.

Hitler invaded Poland with more subtlety.

Yeah, that's right, the Hitler Card, it's been played. Deal. Journalistic Ethics.

But joking aside, he's taken a very public stance on the issue. There's no attempt to hide any aspect of this story. He doesn't need to annotate it every single time, especially with a video aimed pretty squarely at people creating threads in The Escapist message boards.

Keep in mind, I could easily play the Total Biscuit card and declare that since MovieBob is not a Video Game Journalist (he's a movie reviewer and a commentator on video games among other things) and therefore isn't bound by Journalistic Ethics... just like all the YouTubers whose conflicts of interest are outside the boundaries of Journalistic Ethics.

It's an Op-Ed piece. He's not pursuing some hidden agenda. He's upfront about exactly where his allegiances lie. His ethical ducks are in a row IMO.

Hmm, I could agree with that. It's not really any kind of news article. It really is just him talking about his opinion. It may even be irrelevant as to what industry he is a part of.

But yeah, reviews in general are pretty much just opinion. So I think I can concede this point to you. Thank you for the insight.

Also the reality TV article is a puff piece. It's not meant to be hard-hitting journalism, it's about celebrating a bunch of game designers doing a reality TV show. His friendship-verging-on-relationship with Zoe might give her more focus, but it's really nothing more than a "Look At Me" piece to begin with. The show collapsing means there's no product being sold.

From what I understand, people were demonized, positions were taken in the article. All on Zoe's side. How much objectivity on how evil or not evil the guy was can we really expect?

This wasn't an op-ed. This was reporting an event. This was a conflict of interest from a reporter who had been sucking her face not even two weeks before the article was published.

It's not an ideal situation, but it's not exactly an unforgivable breach of ethics based on the total lack of seriousness about the piece.

Oh sure. But it is still certainly a breach of ethics and is unhealthy enough to address rather than to leave to let fester. Being willing to write articles for people you like in full breach of conflict of interest standards isn't far from a news site getting caught in a full-out scandal. But yeah, this is a lot more forgivable than someone who receives money for a favorable review or some such nonsense.

I didn't say he should lose his job and never be employed again. Though, if he really told Stephen Totilo that he didn't have a relationship with her until after the article then I wouldn't blame Stephen for nixing him after he stuck his neck out for him. But the person I was responding to merely asked for citation that there actually was a breach of ethics and I presented it. Honestly, I consider this to be one of the most minor breaches in the whole scandal. Zoe being able to blacklist TYFC just by her own word and also getting WizardChan harassed by her own false accusations without any media fact checking was far worse and I'd say on the side of the journalists who published the articles moreso than herself. I mean, I could write lies to my local newspaper all day long but no harm would come of it unless they published something I said without looking into it. The onus of journalistic integrity is on the media.

I'm just glad that some sites have responded to this mess by revising their code of ethics. That will only benefit us as consumers and will hopefully prevent these sites from getting another black eye in scandals like these when their journalists break the rules. Then they can just point to the rules and then point to their journalists.

 

[Netrigan]

From what I understand, people were demonized, positions were taken in the article. All on Zoe's side.

He criticized the TV people, not the gaming folks. JonTron and Zoe had some kind of disagreement, which was never specified and they took it outside to discuss it in private... and the cameras, desperate for conflict, tried to follow along. The game jam had sub-par equipment, lots of product placement, and lots of attempts to create drama, including bring in non-dev JonTron to be a part of it.

It was Zoe-centric, but I can't think of anyone gaming related who was sandbagged. It sounded like all the gaming folks (JonTron included) all pretty much agreed that the show was a sham and everyone took off.

Anyway, point being, this was meant to be a puff piece about a reality show about game devs. Grayson being close to a dev would likely considered advantageous because he had access to at least one person. I'm assuming his bosses knew he was friendly with Quinn; it doesn't sound like he hid their friendship.

This kind of thing is a case-by-case sort of thing. The more important something is, the more likely they'll dot the i's and cross the t's, but there's a fair number of stories which happen because a reporter is friends with someone. This thing clearly started off as a puff piece and morphed as the gaming folks soured on the TV people.

It's been a few weeks since I read the piece, so feel free to remind me of any bits that are contested by other participants. I didn't exactly read too deep into it.

 

[The Deadpool]

However, since evidence has been given in support of my position, it would be quite reasonable to request that you provide some evidence to counter it.

The null position requires no proof. I simply have to point out that your model fails at predicting reality. Until proven otherwise, I see no reason to believe it.

Oh, for goodness' sake. Yes, you prefaced it by saying, "we're not talking about X", but then you used the opportunity to claim that I "believed [something unspecified] in my head". It's quite reasonable for me to ask what it is you're claiming I believe.

Reading comprehension, how I missed yeh...

You haven't presented your argument. Therefore your argument is in your head. I was about to say that we are not talking about YOUR argument as presented, but her argument as presented. Except your argument has not been presented at all, so I corrected that.

It is IRRELEVANT what you believe. Whether your present it, or keep it in your head, it has no bearing upon THIS conversation which is about two OTHER people's arguments and how they relate to each other.

You're simply conflating premise with argument. The premise is part of the argument; so is what one argues we should do.

The basic premise of the topic is "there are no similarities between Jack Thompson and Anita Sarkeesian."

The counter is: "There ARE plenty."

YOUR counter is: "No because she doesn't want censorship."

Which is true. But censorship is NOT THE TOTALITY OF HIS ARGUMENT. Nor hers. Nor is it where his argument FAILED. His argument failed IN THE SAME WAY HERS DID: In an attempt to draw a causality line between exposure to games and violence/misogyny.

Obviously not. The position that Jack Thompson and Anita Sarkeesian are arguing the same thing is not the null position.

A misunderstanding caused by holding too many arguments in too many fronts at the same time. Apologies.

It may contribute. You'll notice that almost everything on earth has more than one cause.

If it contributes then IT IS A CAUSE. Yes, there are multiple causes (who the hell said anything about SOLE causes?), but if your argument is that it is ONE of the causes then there is STILL a causality effect. Which is what you have been denying the whole time.

Either a) Gaming is one of the causes of misogyny. At which point all of the arguments against this premise preceding it remains valid.

Or b) Gaming is NOT one of the causes of misogyny. At which point, why do we care? How is it harming society?

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

[The Deadpool]

A game in which he is credited in and had been credited in for nearly a year before his article.

Which doesn't change the fact that he didn't lie, he didn't misrepresent the game, he didn't ACTUALLY help or harm anyone in any meaningful way.

He reported the game was up for Greenlighting (which it was) and that he liked it (which we presume is true based on lack of evidence otherwise) as did other people at the office (which we also presume is true based on lack of evidence otherwise).

There is nothing on that article that would be out of place from a writer who simply enjoys her game. Which, as near as we can tell, he IS.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Bob, dude, seriously...

It's your show and technically you can do whatever you want but regardless of ideological difference NO ONE came here to listen to you rant about this issue. Do yourself a favor and take this discussion to another outlet unless you want to alienate viewers who enjoy the big picture for discussing geek nostalgia and other "fun" topics.

Actually, that's exactly what I came for, as well as to see the garglegoat bandwagon whine like the misogynist white male privilege babies they are.

I find this sort of thing to be fascinating. There's a certain mindset that leads to one boiling a movement down to a series of derogatory statements and that mindset is one I've never been able to wrap my head around. I find it particularly interesting that you refer to them as "babies", since your message conveys the idea that you, yourself are engaging in the most juvenile behavior imaginable. I also find it extraordinary that you seem to think everyone who is pro GG is a male or white. I don't imagine you actually believe that though; I am thinking it's just easier to ignore the actual makeup of the group so you can engage in a bit of slamming white males.

I'm not being devious when I say it is fascinating though; I really do find it interesting how people can set their minds this way. The harshness of my criticism is because I also find it deplorable. And surely it doesn't matter, but I am not pro GG myself. I simply find that your description of that movement to be so wacky that it makes a caricature of you more than them.

I use caricature simply because I find nothing serious to take in their stance, and I'm tired of explaining it to people who won't listen. Also, by your definition of immaturity I am well within my rights to point it out in a group that paints their opponents as "LW#" or "SJW" or "left-wing radical". Furthermore, while it is given that GG is not entirely made up of white males, they certainly make up the overwhelming majority. Hell, I'm a white male, and I don't have this sense of entitlement that GG seems to have. It's like they've never read "The And and the Grasshopper", or even seen the Disney adaptation; maybe they could learn a thing or two from it.

I also can't stand GG apologists who "aren't pro-GG" yet don't hesitate to rise to their defense at every opportunity. Where are the criticisms of the ridiculous and short sighted demands made by GG that wouldn't actually fix anything that they purport to want fixed? The lack of such criticisms demonstrates a clear bias toward supporting GG.

(I'm talking about you.)

That is interesting one how do you know that a majority of gg is white and why would that matter in fact white males make up a majority of both sides so really that whole distinction means what now?
Also you brought up that scary word entitlement another casualty in a long list of words that have been over used and have lost all meaning at this point.

I mean you say you are not entitled yet here you are mad at people who don't share the same hate or level of distaste for something the same as you or the way want them to. And yet you say your are not entitled is really hilarious. For real you come off like a bizarro world version of the thing you despise.

As an added bit of fun with that "majority of GG is white" thing, I've seen more than a few pictures of major social gatherings of Games Journalists and SJWs. They were all whiter than a Mormon orgy.

 

[Lightknight]

From what I understand, people were demonized, positions were taken in the article. All on Zoe's side.

He criticized the TV people, not the gaming folks. JonTron and Zoe had some kind of disagreement, which was never specified and they took it outside to discuss it in private... and the cameras, desperate for conflict, tried to follow along. The game jam had sub-par equipment, lots of product placement, and lots of attempts to create drama, including bring in non-dev JonTron to be a part of it.

I'm not sure why it is relevant who is criticized and whether or not they were gamer community people. What if Zoe and co were being total tool-bags to people they'd signed contracts with as I was under the impression the TV crew had stated?


Let me ask you this, why do you think Stephen Totilo deemed the questions important enough to issue a public statement that Nathan Grayson had not started a relationship with her before the kotaku article had gone live?

"Nathan has been accused of in some way trading positive coverage of a developer for the opportunity to sleep with her, of failing to disclose that he was in a romantic relationship with a developer he had written about, and that he'd given said developer's game a favorable review. All of those are troubling claims that we take seriously. All would be violations of the standards we maintain." [http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346]

Now, I don't believe Nathan or Zoe were actually exchanging love fluids for anything. I think they were just interested in eachother as people do. Frankly, you'd have to prove some sort of agreement of exchange for me to believe they'd don otherwise.

However, "Failing to disclose that he was in a romantic relationship with a developer he had written about" was absolutely breached. 100%.

The "developer's game a favorable review" was also true but not at kotaku and likely not when they were in a romantic relationship. Or, at least, there's no evidence that there was any relationship in 2013 when he was placed in the credits of the game as a tester. That was a breach because it was a game he was involved in testing and there was a friendly relationship there. Zoe actually called him a Beta Tester. So this is still a serious conflict of interest.

Look, you may not care about journalistic integrity but the industry does and want to maintain a legitimate degree of professional journalism. Disclosing conflicts of interest is vital to a trustworthy news source.

I wonder if Totilo is aware that they had a romantic relationship before the article went live?

 

[Lightknight]

A game in which he is credited in and had been credited in for nearly a year before his article.

Which doesn't change the fact that he didn't lie, he didn't misrepresent the game,

Doesn't matter, you have to disclose conflicts of interest like you being credited in the title.

he didn't ACTUALLY help or harm anyone in any meaningful way.

You don't think publishing an article on a popular site and giving the game a spotlight above other games would potentially benefit awareness of the game as a favorable game out of a list of 50 that were otherwise undistinguished? List of 50 games and yet the title of the article played off the name of her game, the only image on the article was of her game, and was the first of three games to be called out as a star of the show?

Are you looking at the same article I am? [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/08/admission-quest-valve-greenlights-50-more-games/]

He reported the game was up for Greenlighting (which it was) and that he liked it (which we presume is true based on lack of evidence otherwise) as did other people at the office (which we also presume is true based on lack of evidence otherwise).

There is nothing on that article that would be out of place from a writer who simply enjoys her game. Which, as near as we can tell, he IS.

It isn't that he simply enjoys her game. He tested the game for her over a year before the article and was credited in the title 11 months before his article came out to give the game visibility.

Sorry if you can't see that the conflict of interest is more than just "he likes the game". Someone liking the game is the reason we want people to mention title. Someone liking the game creator isn't.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Anita, on the other hand, is challenging the CONSEQUENCE-FREE SPEECH

Likewise, she now faces the consequences of her own speech, none of which are legally binding or government supported.

Why the concern over silencing critics when no one is actually being censored?

The death threats against Anita can't be shrugged off when she had to cancel a presentation because the threat of a school shooting could've been carried out thanks to how guns weren't banned from the school she was presenting [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138046-School-Shooting-Threat-Sent-to-USU-about-Anita-Sarkeesian],

False; Anita made the decision to cancel her talk even after being assured the threat the school had received was not credible by the police. Many college campuses allow guns to be carried, typically in states with similar laws. She's been giving talks at length across the country for some times, she knows these laws exist. Refusing to talk at a previously planned presentation because of death threats she has allegedly been receiving this entire time because of a common firearm law she would have undoubtedly encountered before is disingenuous.

and when she was forced to flee her own house after the threats to break in and murder her family proved all to real not to brush off as a sick joke or empty boast [http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/27/6075179/anita-sarkeesian-says-she-was-driven-out-of-house-by-threats].

False; The threat of posting an address of a public figure, or the address of a public figure's family with nothing more than words to back it up is not a credible threat. Considering Anita continues to make public appearances in well-populated spaces to this day, and much of her personal information can be found online through completely legal means with nothing more than her full name, it is laughable to asserts this had any more reason to 'drive Anita from her home' than any other anonymous death threats.

Also? Gamergate is pretty sure they found 'Kevin Dobson'. He was a Brazilian journalist by the name of Mateus Prado Sousa doing it to stir up controversy: http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2j2gun/identity_of_one_of_anita_sarkeesians_harassers/

At the very LEAST, the GamerGate members who DON'T support trying to outright kill Anita just to shut her up should call out any of their members who tried to do so, if only in a "GUYS!! Stop making US look bad!" motive.

GG has no membership, no leader, no organized methodology. It simply is. Trying to call out anonymous users who engage in bad behavior for no other reason than they used the GG hash tag is beyond impractical.

Just wanted to chime in with something here, that journalist could end up being arrested, but the police basically need Anita's statements in order to do so. Anita hasn't so much as made a peep about this, and by all accounts has not done what would lead to the guy getting arrested, but she WILL talk bout how she got chased out of her home by threatening Tweets and is now staying at a friend's place.

Rather odd that.

 

[Silvanus]

The null position requires no proof. I simply have to point out that your model fails at predicting reality. Until proven otherwise, I see no reason to believe it.

The null position is the default, unless there is evidence for the positive claim. Some has been given. The null hypothesis doesn't just retain its blessed position until proof is found.

Reading comprehension, how I missed yeh...

You haven't presented your argument. Therefore your argument is in your head. I was about to say that we are not talking about YOUR argument as presented, but her argument as presented. Except your argument has not been presented at all, so I corrected that.

It is IRRELEVANT what you believe. Whether your present it, or keep it in your head, it has no bearing upon THIS conversation which is about two OTHER people's arguments and how they relate to each other.

Right. I'm not presenting an argument of my own. It seemed to me when you said that, that you were assuming you knew an unspoken argument of mine, but I may have been wrong. Maybe I was jumping at shadows.

The basic premise of the topic is "there are no similarities between Jack Thompson and Anita Sarkeesian."

The counter is: "There ARE plenty."

YOUR counter is: "No because she doesn't want censorship."

Which is true. But censorship is NOT THE TOTALITY OF HIS ARGUMENT. Nor hers. Nor is it where his argument FAILED. His argument failed IN THE SAME WAY HERS DID: In an attempt to draw a causality line between exposure to games and violence/misogyny.

Once again, for perhaps the fourth or fifth time, arguing influence is not arguing causality. If you keep referring to causality, when she's not arguing it, then you're simply not discussing this in good faith.

Also, the notion that there are similarities is a step-back you've taken. You were originally saying they were "the same".

If it contributes then IT IS A CAUSE. Yes, there are multiple causes (who the hell said anything about SOLE causes?), but if your argument is that it is ONE of the causes then there is STILL a causality effect. Which is what you have been denying the whole time.

A cause is not necessarily synonymous with a contributory factor, or influence. If a dozen different sources influence somebody, and they eventually make a decision, each one of the dozen cannot really be said to "cause" the decision.

 

[Something Amyss]

Just wanted to chime in with something here, that journalist could end up being arrested, but the police basically need Anita's statements in order to do so. Anita hasn't so much as made a peep about this, and by all accounts has not done what would lead to the guy getting arrested, but she WILL talk bout how she got chased out of her home by threatening Tweets and is now staying at a friend's place.

Rather odd that.

Have you spoken to the police on this matter? The claim that Dobson was the harasser has not to my knowledge been actually demonstrated, nor has the claim that Anita has said nothing to the police, but they keep coming up. Do you possess some special knowledge the rest of us do not, or is this just rationalisation?

 

[Netrigan]

From what I understand, people were demonized, positions were taken in the article. All on Zoe's side.

He criticized the TV people, not the gaming folks. JonTron and Zoe had some kind of disagreement, which was never specified and they took it outside to discuss it in private... and the cameras, desperate for conflict, tried to follow along. The game jam had sub-par equipment, lots of product placement, and lots of attempts to create drama, including bring in non-dev JonTron to be a part of it.

I'm not sure why it is relevant who is criticized and whether or not they were gamer community people. What if Zoe and co were being total tool-bags to people they'd signed contracts with as I was under the impression the TV crew had stated?


Let me ask you this, why do you think Stephen Totilo deemed the questions important enough to issue a public statement that Nathan Grayson had not started a relationship with her before the kotaku article had gone live?

"Nathan has been accused of in some way trading positive coverage of a developer for the opportunity to sleep with her, of failing to disclose that he was in a romantic relationship with a developer he had written about, and that he'd given said developer's game a favorable review. All of those are troubling claims that we take seriously. All would be violations of the standards we maintain." [http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346]

Now, I don't believe Nathan or Zoe were actually exchanging love fluids for anything. I think they were just interested in eachother as people do. Frankly, you'd have to prove some sort of agreement of exchange for me to believe they'd don otherwise.

However, "Failing to disclose that he was in a romantic relationship with a developer he had written about" was absolutely breached. 100%.

The "developer's game a favorable review" was also true but not at kotaku and likely not when they were in a romantic relationship. Or, at least, there's no evidence that there was any relationship in 2013 when he was placed in the credits of the game as a tester. That was a breach because it was a game he was involved in testing and there was a friendly relationship there. Zoe actually called him a Beta Tester. So this is still a serious conflict of interest.

Look, you may not care about journalistic integrity but the industry does and want to maintain a legitimate degree of professional journalism. Disclosing conflicts of interest is vital to a trustworthy news source.

I wonder if Totilo is aware that they had a romantic relationship before the article went live?

I've read into it; I clearly care about ethics in all of gaming, not just Journalism... hence the little dig at Total Biscuit deciding that YouTubers don't count in these discussion. No, they frakkin' do. They're the Talk Radio of the Internet; their ethics (or lack there of) are extremely important to the corruption we're seeing the game industry.

There's two pieces that seem to be under fire. One has him placing her game on a list of 50 notable indie games (or something to that affect). Not a review as such and Depression Quest had gotten quite a lot of positive press and discussion. Its inclusion on that list doesn't strike me as surprising. Had it been a more involved piece, I would say he would need to disclose his tie to the game's development in some way; but it would be like Jim Sterling making a list of his favorite games and listing Borderlands 2 on it without comment, even though he's got a connection to the game's head writer through Destructoid.

The other is this particular piece and the relationship does call it into question.

And after a couple months of that, no one seems to have any substantial complaint about anything he wrote in that particular article. The appearance of impropriety is not evidence of impropriety. If you see smoke, look for fire... but if you don't find fire, there's no reason to keep pointing to the smoke as proof there's a fire.

I'm not saying this shouldn't have been looked into; it's just there's really not a whole lot there. I was looking at a GG written time-line of journalistic scandals and this didn't even make the list.

 

[bobdole1979]

I find it hillarious the Gamergate people say that Anita denies discussion.. How does she do that? Has she gotten a law passed that says no one can disscuss sexism in video games????

We are dealing with people who think a Twitter block list is "silencing" them.

https://medium.com/@melectable/you-need-to-stop-an-open-letter-to-femfreq-freebsdgirl-et-al-fde8629bab3

Until, that is, I realized that Randi Harper has been diligently at work creating a Twitter block bot designed to silence people who have spoken out in support of Gamergate

The Sarkeesian situation is amusing, because so many people seem to think the hundreds of YouTube videos and blog posts and tweets and assorted other criticisms of her work aren't enough. We've had two freakin' years of nothing but criticism of her work and it's not enough. It will never be enough. How much Free Speech do you need?

well Twitter is the place for intelligent discussions. I mean if it doesn't happen on twitter does it really ever happen?

 

[Netrigan]

I find it hillarious the Gamergate people say that Anita denies discussion.. How does she do that? Has she gotten a law passed that says no one can disscuss sexism in video games????

We are dealing with people who think a Twitter block list is "silencing" them.

https://medium.com/@melectable/you-need-to-stop-an-open-letter-to-femfreq-freebsdgirl-et-al-fde8629bab3

Until, that is, I realized that Randi Harper has been diligently at work creating a Twitter block bot designed to silence people who have spoken out in support of Gamergate

The Sarkeesian situation is amusing, because so many people seem to think the hundreds of YouTube videos and blog posts and tweets and assorted other criticisms of her work aren't enough. We've had two freakin' years of nothing but criticism of her work and it's not enough. It will never be enough. How much Free Speech do you need?

well Twitter is the place for intelligent discussions. I mean if it doesn't happen on twitter does it really ever happen?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to tweet about it, did it really fall at all?

For the first time in ever, I was poking around various Twitter accounts last night and today.

It's funny how Sarkeesian's Twitter feed looks more like a gamer/geek feed than any of the GamerGate people I looked into. She looks like she's having way more fun than the GG folks. Plenty of pictures of cosplayers and plush toys.

I'm not even sure how Gaters have time to be Gamers anymore. They seem to have a pretty heavy workload with the e-mail campaign, the constant tweeting, the multiple GG streams, the 3 hour videos condemning Anita Sarkeesian's latest 64 character tweet, and calling each other faggots all day long... or maybe that's just Internet Aristocrat.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm not saying this shouldn't have been looked into; it's just there's really not a whole lot there. I was looking at a GG written time-line of journalistic scandals and this didn't even make the list.

There is an active attempt to avoid discussing it for fear it will play into the narrative that we are somehow slut shaming. It's the same reason Zoe became Literally Who. Because we want the focus on ethics because that's what we care about and Zoe/Grayson are small fish.

But really, this is all on Nathan Grayson's shoulders. While it is a breach of ethics you are correct that it isn't necessarily as big as the others. But this is the form of nepotism that was the linchpin of the entire scandal. That it isn't listed is something someone did on purpose. Small things sometime lead to revealing big things. This probably should have been listed just for that.

Professionally, I'd probably say that Grayson lying to Stephen (if he did) was probably the worst action. If it helps any to explain the degree of gravity I give or don't give to it.

My reason for listing these things here, was purely because the original person I quoted asked. This component wasn't debunked, it has actually been verified. It just isn't as big as people thought it was before.

Before, people thought he wrote a game review for a lover. Now it turns out he wrote an article for a love but the game review was merely regarding a game a friend made. So... small potatoes really, compared to industry collusion and an attempt to call gamers dead for some ridiculous reason. Redefining the term gamer to be something offensive to assault a group of people who were already belittled for being gamers in their youth. What dickery, you know?

 

[The Deadpool]

It isn't that he simply enjoys her game. He tested the game for her over a year before the article and was credited in the title 11 months before his article came out to give the game visibility.

Unless he is getting royalties from it, he has no fiduciary connection to this. His previous employment under her does NOT preclude him from praising her work.

Sorry if you can't see that the conflict of interest is more than just "he likes the game". Someone liking the game is the reason we want people to mention title. Someone liking the game creator isn't.

The thing is, from everything we've seen, he does ACTUALLY like the title regardless of his relationship with the creator.

Journalists are going to develop social relationships with the developers. It's just human nature. If you're going to crucify everyone for liking a game whose creator they also like then there is no journalism.

Yes, he could have easily added "by my friend Zoey" to that article and avoided ALL of this. I get that. But on the same token, I see no evidence that he wouldn't have written the same thing if he'd never known her. It was a tiny, insignificant article that didn't even lie about anything.

Of all the problems the industry and journalism have, some guy liking a game from a developer he knows personally is far from a serious issue...

 

[Kursura]

I'd honestly forgotten he even existed due to how long it's been since I'd last seen him mentioned.