Pawkeshup

Hello there!

First, glad to see another media outlet addressing this. And I agree, GamerGate has been stained, polluted by the hate-filled corner of the Internet so filled with rage that all discussion with that segment is a lost cause. And, unlike that segment, I don't think every single journalist is in some giant cabal intended to twist narratives, push agendas, and collude with one another to silence people. At the same time, reasoned debate is being silenced, and as we move from actual journalistic groups like you'd find in a newsroom, and more to using people who blog for a living, we are losing the focus. The most recent Wall Street Journal article is a key point for me. The USU threat, despite not even being about GamerGate, was rolled into the article as some form of culmination of the outrage. Another article on Rolling Stone has an interview with Anita Sarkeesian, stating that she is "at the center of the controversy."

Both these articles were written by people who do have an agenda, and are spinning their narrative, yet they are not following the guidelines suggested by any journalism group out there. There are editorial statements being made rather than facts being reported. And while I don't want to see reviews become mechanical, humourless objective reviews, clarity is required. The lines are blurring too far now, and it's not just in gaming journalism.

The Glenn Becks and Bill O'Reilly's of the world are polluting journalism the same way haters have polluted GamerGate. When I lived in Canada, I watched as the news went from balanced, fact-based reporting to the more US-style sensationalized style. The positive stories and good news was at the end of the news, instead of simply being reported as a part of the news. Ratings became more important than truth.

In the gaming area of journalism, it's not ratings but page views. Click-bait titles and shocking revelations. Exclusive reviews and interviews. But at what cost is it all coming? It's being paid out by the integrity of every site, every reporter. Just like when you watch the news, you have to judge the site that reviews a game or posts a news story now. No one is shocked that Polygon gave Bayonetta 2 a lower score if they pay any attention to the agenda the site has started pushing. Again, I'm not saying that is a bad thing for reviews, but there are more insidious biases out there.

Journalists review friends' games. They invest in games they cover. They attend conferences that reward them for tweeting about certain products. Draconian contracts are passed behind closed doors for exclusive reviews. This issue is not new, but the recent controversy has brought it back to the light yet again. Groups of journalists who are friends discuss stories via email groups, potentially leading to like-minded stories being published.

GamerGate isn't going away, the coverage in media does. GamerGate truly existed all along, trying desperately to be heard. It took controversy and threats, sadly, to get the media to come back to it. It's the same issue that John Bain spoke of, that Jim Sterling has spoken about. It's an issue almost as old as gaming press itself. But over the years, it's gotten far worse. It used to be you knew which magazines had ties to certain companies, so you could weigh the words of them versus the more independent voices out there. And now, as writers change staff, as people who have never taken a single journalism class in their life, who have never seen ethics guidelines before, start writing articles for public consumption, trust is being breached on a wide scale. While whole sites are not truly to blame, certain writers are.

I am not saying these writers must be run out. I am saying the industry needs to educate them, to self regulate. Or perhaps the FTC needs to be more aggressive about its disclosure enforcement. Whatever it takes, we need to rebuild the trust in the media reporting to us. I would want all journalism to be doing that, but if we can start with our small corner of the world, then that's what we will do.

And you know what, I had decided to stay out of GamerGate for all the reasons in your post. I wanted Ethics to be the focus, and the tag was so associated with garbage that I felt it was pointless. But I kept watching the detractors pushing their message out, silencing dissent, controlling the narrative because so few people like myself were speaking out. And I realized that GamerGate cannot die. It needs to continue, throw off its hate-filled element, and move forward. We need to mobilize against the tide, and ensure that those who would say that GamerGate was nothing but a hate movement are dead wrong.

Sadly, hate on the Internet is not new, and will never go away unless laws change globally to call to account any scum who dare threaten the lives of other, to bully others into silence. But that cannot impede the reform that is needed. I support GamerGate, and so should anyone who cares to ensure ethics return in full force to our sites.