I Wrote A Response to VGC's "Game Journalism is Broken" Article
By Fish_Face_McGee 1 Comments
This is a repost from a comment, mostly to make sure I have an easy place to link to. If you don't know the article in question, it's this.
I find this article (and the subsequent attempt at damage control by the author on Twitter) to be fascinating. And hilarious. And completely hypocritical.
First off, it's great that Brett Walton, founder of VGChartz.com, thinks that "journalism needs a big shake up," and that, "Much of the current 'journalism' consists of re-worded press releases." However, you would think that, as founder of VGChartz, he would have some control of daughter-site gamrfeed and would ensure that his own sites don't fall under journalism that could only be referred to when in quotes.
Second, I don't think it was the best idea to use a sampling method that you claim to be random. This is the internet, where anonymity is king. There is no way for us to know that you didn't selectively choose the articles to make your point. Even if you provide the list of all the articles in the sample, there will be no way to know they were truly random. You've said yourself that "...these blogs thrive on hits and post counts." Why should we assume your'e any different?
Third, it's great that you're railing on editorialized articles when, until you provide your proof, this is an editorial. You've said yourself that "editorializing also forces the opinion of the writer into the news." Until you post the list of articles so that we can see whether or not you're full of shit, this is all opinion. You've provided no criteria on how you organized your data, just the categories they went into. It's great that you had four different categories of headline. However, without explaining what it takes for a headline to fit in one category over another, it's opinion. Hell, unless you're able to cite some well-known organization method for sorting headlines, it's opinion.
Using the risk of libel suit is great to explain why you should avoid grammatical errors. You know what else can bring up a libel suit? Accusing another person of being sexist (or at the very least writing a sexist article) without providing proof.
For someone who claims to want better things from gaming journalists, it should be shameful that you made this article without providing any evidence for any of your points. You have accused a person of being sexist and won't even provide your "evidence" until Monday. I don't understand the thought process that would lead to write such an inflammatory article and not think that you would be expected to back it up. I mean, hell, GoogleCache is not a new thing.