Is Game "JOURNALIST" an appropriate title?

In the past few years I've been thinking about becoming a videogame journalist. In the last 14 months I've actually been planning it. Many of you know I've joined the Army to pay for the college, and quite frankly, if I'm going to be working at a desk for the greater-half of my life I feel I should do something a little more active, plus I've always found military combat fascinating. I'm going to major in some-sort of variation of English when I get back from my first deployment in 2011, but I don't know if I should actually do journalism. I haven't had the chance to go over every option colleges have for English majors, but I feel like I'm not going to benefit much from journalism beyond grammar. 

The University of Cincinnati does offer Media Criticism (to my surprise the teacher totally covers games for a lesson), but that's only a one-year course. I'm going to take Japanese to add a little extra to my resume, and to help if/when I go to TGS. Just so I can handle myself in basic conversations, and be there to translate the FFXV demo in 2015. I've also decided to double major in media production. My conundrum is the question, is Game Journalist an appropriate title?

What do “real” journalists do? They go out, travel, hit the streets for “hot scoops”, get to the bottom of the story, write about them, talk about them on CNN, and win awards. I would go as far as saying utilizing the title “Game Journalist” may become pretentious in the future. What would be an appropriate job title that describes what “game writers” do?

Do I go around saying I want to be a Game Critic? I feel that's the best alternative. I mean, they do criticize. They also write up stories, and report press releases, but their main job is telling us (the consumer) what games to look at. The title journalist doesn't fit, while Game Critic may not reveal the spectrum of things that involve the career, I feel it's the best solution. The term “critic” does have its own stigma to it. “Oh, all you do is play videogames and tell people if they suck or not?” I'm not too sure. We should totally drop the term all together, and “Game Press” sounds awkward. What do you think? I feel like their is a more appropriate term than Journalist.

In the past few years I've been thinking about becoming a videogame journalist. In the last 14 months I've actually been planning it. Many of you know I've joined the Army to pay for the college, and quite frankly, if I'm going to be working at a desk for the greater-half of my life I feel I should do something a little more active, plus I've always found military combat fascinating. I'm going to major in some-sort of variation of English when I get back from my first deployment in 2011, but I don't know if I should actually do journalism. I haven't had the chance to go over every option colleges have for English majors, but I feel like I'm not going to benefit much from journalism beyond grammar. 

The University of Cincinnati does offer Media Criticism (to my surprise the teacher totally covers games for a lesson), but that's only a one-year course. I'm going to take Japanese to add a little extra to my resume, and to help if/when I go to TGS. Just so I can handle myself in basic conversations, and be there to translate the FFXV demo in 2015. I've also decided to double major in media production. My conundrum is the question, is Game Journalist an appropriate title?

What do “real” journalists do? They go out, travel, hit the streets for “hot scoops”, get to the bottom of the story, write about them, talk about them on CNN, and win awards. I would go as far as saying utilizing the title “Game Journalist” may become pretentious in the future. What would be an appropriate job title that describes what “game writers” do?

Do I go around saying I want to be a Game Critic? I feel that's the best alternative. I mean, they do criticize. They also write up stories, and report press releases, but their main job is telling us (the consumer) what games to look at. The title journalist doesn't fit, while Game Critic may not reveal the spectrum of things that involve the career, I feel it's the best solution. The term “critic” does have its own stigma to it. “Oh, all you do is play videogames and tell people if they suck or not?” I'm not too sure. We should totally drop the term all together, and “Game Press” sounds awkward. What do you think? I feel like their is a more appropriate term than Journalist.

Yes, it is.

I think more time is spent reporting news than critiquing games. But if you only want to review games, then game critic sounds about right. If you wanna report news, go to events, etc, then that qualifies as journalism, imo. It's too bad so many people just go "I'm not really a journalist" and with that justify being completely yellow like a cheap tabloid nowadays though. Anyway, call it whatever people can understand there.

It absolutely is the correct title for the profession, and if you think that the things you listed are the only things game journalists do, you should probably research your chosen profession more thoroughly.

The more appropriate title would be Professional Games Enthusiasm.  Learning Journalism essentially enables you to write about anything it that typical reporting fashion, regardless of your own interests.  Generally, games writers include considerably more enthusiasm and excitement in their writing.  Take Giant Bomb for example: most of their news posts are more opinionated and personalized rather than written as several paragraphs of droning facts about whatever breaking news story.

You could argue that persistent columns within newspapers and magazines are similar, and you would be right.  Those writers tend to hold more important positions within their own publications, allowed to profess their own personal tastes and opinions on particular topics.  Those writers also fall under the category of Professional Enthusiasts.

I think that gaming "journalism" always comes across as being pretentious when I hear the term used. A lot of the 1up/joystiq/former 1up guys discuss this topic a lot, and typically seem to vent the perspective that mere information is somehow useless in comparison with the spectre of "real" game journalism.

Let's invent a new name for them. From now on Games Journalists will be known as Game Chazmooliers.

Journalism is in the toilet these days, so adding the word 'journalist' to anything isn't exactly high praise.  So many have stopped reporting and simply print what the politicians and big business pay them to.  I no longer read any form of print, except oddy enough - games magazines.

Kind of off topic, but N’Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo recently had an interesting discussion involving journalism.
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/03/05/ngai-vs-stephen-rd-2-finale/

I don't use the term "journalist" usually when describing any writer whose focus is the games industry.  It might be splitting hairs but I don't consider reporting rumors, doing reviews, writing previews and all the other stuff we see from the gaming press as journalism.  If there was in depth analysis or interviews with real depth, then I'd consider that journalism.  I've been told that The Edge Magazine does a lot of that type of actual journalism in their periodicals and I used to listen to a podcast that focused on the business of video games called Game Theory hosted by Colin Campbell, Gary Whitta and Jeremy Williams.  That show went much deeper into an analysis of video games as entertainment.  Most of the gaming press is satisfied with things like what do the graphics look like, what are the controls, and when is it coming out.  That's not journalism, that's reporting the press release.  I'm not dismissing it, however.  It is a very important part of the industry and it's what we all, as consumers, want to know.

Heh,  I meant what grade will you be... Freshman, Sophomore, etc. XD

It is, and I can say it enough steve...Thank you for your service. It means a lot to me as well as many others.

Yes, and I get really annoyed whenever I hear Garnet on ListenUp lament the fact that they are called game's journalists. You report on gaming news, you're a damn journalist. Sure you aren't traversing the war torn streets of Iraq to cover Modern Warfare 2 but you are still gathering info and (hopefully) facts and feeding it to an audience over some professional publication/site. You are a journalist. A man who directs a violence and tits movie is just as much of a director as the man who directs a movie concerning poverty in Africa. How serious the work they put out is is another story entirely.

I don't think they should be called journalists just because they do more than that.  They are critics, journalists, entertainers all wrapped into one.  You have to realize there is not enough gaming news to be a full on reporter for it.

English major? That's all I know about getting there.

You can actually study journalism.

Anyway, to answer the topic title question, it depends on what you're talking about. Stephen Totillo (at least pre-kotaku) is someone whom I would call a game journalist. He writes editorials and does do the sort of networking and digging that any journalist has to do. Jeff, Ryan, Vinny and Brad are all people who I would say are gaming enthusiast writers. They review games, they write about game news, but for the most part they just relay press releases and discuss what they think of games; there isn't any real journalism going on. There are certainly writers who straddle the line between these worlds, and I'll allow them to be defined however they like, but this is the seperation I draw.

Nothing anyone does should be done with the idea of winning an award.