Did Patrick Klepek leave Kotaku?

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flameboy84

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I noticed he tweeted saying he was having an uneventful Monday and then someone else replied that there were jobs around. I know he wrote some tweets about this whole Gawker gay outing article that was retracted I wonder if they didn't take kindly to it?

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chaser324

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#2  Edited By chaser324  Moderator

I don't think so. I definitely don't envy any of the editors that are getting caught in the crossfire of this thing though. That article absolutely never should've been posted, but the manner in which it was pulled down is also troublesome - atrocious situation to be connected to (even tenuously) if you're anyone that ventures to do responsible writing.

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DemiGodRaven

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Looks like the phrase used was 'few job openings upstairs' which may be a reference to the fact that the two editors at Gawker just quit. Guy is probably joking that Patrick should go for one of the editor spots.

But then again, he could've quit. I couldn't tell you - the author bylines are so small on that site that I rarely know who is doing anything unless I'm specifically checking for someone I like. I keep up with Patrick via his youtube/twitch stuff.

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shaunk

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I don't believe he has left, he just seems to point out that the article was unnecessary. I don't think he would leave his job as it doesn't directly affect him.

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Entreri10

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The only ones I've seen so far are Tommy Craggs and Max Read. (high ups for Gawker) Haven't seen anything related directly to Kotaku editors.

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jman240

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#6  Edited By jman240

@chaser324: I mean, it only had to be pulled down because the editorial leadership didn't have the courage or wherewithal to realize exactly how much they fucked up.

Also, nah, I don't think he's leaving. He's not high enough up the food chain there to have to deal with much of the fallout, and is generally more well respected than most of the staff, outside of maybe Tina.

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chaser324

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#7 chaser324  Moderator

@jman240 said:

@chaser324: I mean, it only had to be pulled down because the editorial leadership didn't have the courage or wherewithal to realize exactly how much they fucked up.

Very true.

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notdavid

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The Gawker Media editorial team is such a vile cesspool of oblivious self-righteousness right now, and I fully expect someone with the moral integrity of @patrickklepek to resign and take his talents elsewhere.

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Milkman

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@notdavid: This is a very easy thing to say on a forum but actually leaving your (relatively) high paying, stable job to risk your livelihood in an extremely volatile field like journalism, let alone games journalism, is an entirely different thing.

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CatsAkimbo

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Any chance someone could TL;DR what this is all about? I can't do much google sleuthing with most of these sites blocked where I'm at.

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Slag

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@notdavid: well since Max Read resigned (aka the editor who greenlit the latest Gawker travesty), if I were in Patrick's shoes I'd be more inclined to stay on at Kotaku than I would have been on Friday.

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notdavid

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@milkman: Is it really that stable of a job at this point, though? With the whole Hogan fiasco, and all of this garbage piled on top, I don't see Gawker hanging around for much longer. The longer he stays with this sinking ship, the lower his reputation gets, and the fewer job prospects he'll have.

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l4wd0g

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#13  Edited By l4wd0g

@jman240 said:

@chaser324: I mean, it only had to be pulled down because the editorial leadership didn't have the courage or wherewithal to realize exactly how much they fucked up.

Also, nah, I don't think he's leaving. He's not high enough up the food chain there to have to deal with much of the fallout, and is generally more well respected than most of the staff, outside of maybe Tina.

maybe not right now, but I'm pretty sure there is going to be another lawsuit. I don't know that Gawker can handle that financially. Also, there is the issue of the Gawker brand being "toxic" (I hate that word). What advertising partner wants to be associated with them now?

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flameboy84

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@notdavid: Yeah that was actual initial thought when I saw his tweets on the issue that he may quit cos he doesn't want to be part of that company, but I think he is too rational (need an income etc) to do that.

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hatking

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#15  Edited By hatking

@catsakimbo said:

Any chance someone could TL;DR what this is all about? I can't do much google sleuthing with most of these sites blocked where I'm at.

This would be great. Being on Twitter for more than a few seconds at a time makes me feel physically ill.

Edit: This Variety article seems to sum it up. Man, I'm glad I avoid Gawker websites.

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Milkman

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@notdavid: It's certainly more stable than being unemployed. Besides even if Gawker was to go under (seems doubtful to me), it's much more likely that Kotaku would be bought by some other company than for the entire staff to just be fired.

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Ghostiet

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#17  Edited By Ghostiet

What a great month for Gawker, gee.

@hatking said:
@catsakimbo said:

Any chance someone could TL;DR what this is all about? I can't do much google sleuthing with most of these sites blocked where I'm at.

This would be great. Being on Twitter for more than a few seconds at a time makes me feel physically ill.

http://www.advocate.com/media/2015/07/16/gawker-blasted-posting-lurid-story-outs-executive - this one makes a good job of summing up the level of fucked up regarding the story Gawker published. Especially since one of the commenters (first comment, actually) points out another fucked up thread in this mess.

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ZolRoyce

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He talks a bit about this whole issue in one of his latest YouTube videos. About one minute thirty seconds in or so. They don't sound like "I'm leaving" words to me.


Loading Video...

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kcin

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Unfortunately for Patrick, I don't think that Patrick can afford to leave Kotaku. Considering how much he has discussed the evolution of games journalism and its virtually inexorable path towards eliminating writers as a whole, I take his commentary to mean that games journalism is a tough gig in which to find a steady foothold. I would guess that he almost CERTAINLY did not expect something like this to happen, and he probably feels like Gawker is not exactly what he hoped it would be, considering how violently their behavior (almost since his moving over to Kotaku) flies in the face of what I think are his own values.

The dissonance between Gawker's overall behavior and its child entities like Jezebel and Kotaku is absolutely baffling. I think Gawker's proud of their editorial freedom (as in, no one reigns any of them in) and how it allows for such wildly different behaviors and presented values. However, when your site's style is presenting everything as an op-ed with the writer's perspective and opinion embedded in the story, it's probably pretty tough as one of the many [arguably faceless] writers to express your opinion in your own article, on behalf of the site for which you write, and then have someone else, elsewhere on Gawker, express the exact opposite opinion, only more vehemently, also on behalf of the site for which you write.

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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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He was disgusted by it but will continue to work there.

Internet journalism is low-paying and unstable and morally unappealing, so I hear. And for whatever reason, that's preferable to delivering mail, packing meat, digging holes, serving food, porting goods or entering data. The spotlight is apparently worth the sacrifices.

Me and a personal friend both took history in university. Years later, neither of us work in a profession that involves historical analysis or anything like that. There's not many of those jobs in that field, and what jobs there are entail a ton of the networking hustle and begging this person and that agency for more grant money, neither of which sounded appealing to us.

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Slag

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to answer the OP, I'd say he is still there

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BionicIguana

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Looks like the phrase used was 'few job openings upstairs' which may be a reference to the fact that the two editors at Gawker just quit. Guy is probably joking that Patrick should go for one of the editor spots.

But then again, he could've quit. I couldn't tell you - the author bylines are so small on that site that I rarely know who is doing anything unless I'm specifically checking for someone I like. I keep up with Patrick via his youtube/twitch stuff.

You are talking about a tweet I sent him and it was indeed referring to the Gawker guys quitting

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ottoman673

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#23  Edited By ottoman673

Bring him back to SF/Giant Bomb.

I miss the man's work, but keep myself to his twitter/tumblr/YouTube channel because fuck giving Gawker clicks. I cannot wait for the hulk to smash their shitty organization, and for them to taste a bit of their own equally toxic medicine.

Better yet: He can take Kevin VanOrd's job

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Humanity

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It's a shitty situation to be even loosely associated with that incident but at a certain point he must have known what kind of company he's signing up for.

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456nto

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If Patrick were to leave Kotaku, I find it hard to believe that there are many (if any) job opportunities available to him when it comes to writing about games. In fact, I'm willing to bet that his prospects are decreasing the longer he stays at Kotaku on account of the fucking terrible reputation Gawker has accrued. I can imagine Patrick being very frustrated with this turn of events but I don't foresee him leaving the site any time soon, unless Gawker implodes and collapses - though Kotaku will probably be purchased by another company if that were to happen. Just a shitty situation all-around.

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bceagles128

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#26  Edited By bceagles128

I didn't read the article but wasn't the general premise that some big time magazine executive was trying to hire a male prostitute for $2500? If that's all, I don't understand the outcry. That sounds no different from what gawker publishes every day. They literally exist for the purpose of publishing by gossip. I don't really care that it was gay sex or straight sex. If a high enough profile executive that was married with children had tried to pay for heterosexual sex, and gawker found out about it, that certainly sounds like something gawker would publish. I mean, the tiger woods story was like the biggest fucking story in the country for a month.

And to be clear, I think what gawker publishes normally is gross and obnoxious. I just don't understand why this one story calls for such special treatment

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Nephrahim

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I didn't read the article but wasn't the general premise that some big time magazine executive was trying to hire a male prostitute for $2500? If that's all, I don't understand the outcry. That sounds no different from what gawker publishes every day. They literally exist for the purpose of publishing by gossip. I don't really care that it was gay sex or straight sex. If a high enough profile executive that was married with children had tried to pay for heterosexual sex, and gawker found out about it, that certainly sounds like something gawker would publish. I mean, the tiger woods story was like the biggest fucking story in the country for a month.

It's a matter of being in the public or not. Tiger Woods is a famous golf player who was known the world over. This guy was just some buisness guy. Nobody knew who he was until they ran this article.

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bceagles128

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@456nto: that's silly. I'm sure Patrick would have plenty of job opportunities if he left. He's quietly developed into one of the best gaming journalists out there, irrespective of what company he works for. Successful people in this world are not dumb enough to hold the sins of other people at affiliated companies against individual people in the job market. I know plenty of guys who used to work at Lehman who still work in finance. Nobody gives a shit.

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I_Stay_Puft

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#29  Edited By I_Stay_Puft

@demigodraven said:

Looks like the phrase used was 'few job openings upstairs' which may be a reference to the fact that the two editors at Gawker just quit. Guy is probably joking that Patrick should go for one of the editor spots.

But then again, he could've quit. I couldn't tell you - the author bylines are so small on that site that I rarely know who is doing anything unless I'm specifically checking for someone I like. I keep up with Patrick via his youtube/twitch stuff.

Do you know which two editors quit?

Edit: nevermind just found it. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/20/424699787/gawkers-top-editors-quit-over-deleted-post

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bacongames

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I don't see how this necessarily involves Patrick or any other editor at a site like Kotaku other than internal discussion about editorial and the editor's union.

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flippyandnod

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He should have known better getting in.

gawker are scum and have always been scum. He let himself get tricked into thinking they were stand-up people just because they were on the right side of GamerGate.

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456nto

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@bceagles128: We're talking about the world of games journalism here. Not a finance company - public figures. I doubt many video game journalism outlets would employ somebody who has had a history of working at Kotaku (a site that a significant deal of gamers are openly hostile against) because of the backlash it'd cause among the userbase. Gawker isn't exactly helping to improve Kotaku's reputation with this whole gay outing scandal, either. Games writing as a career is no longer realistic and it's very hard to make money doing it - just ask Cara Ellison.

I agree with you that you should never judge an individual on account of the companies they've worked for. Many people who are into video games strike me as a breed of people who would do exactly that, though. Or maybe I'm being pessimistic.

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Bones8677

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@flameboy84: He'll stay there for at least two more years before leaving for some other game site. Dude get's around.

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Levius

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#34  Edited By Levius

He will stay. The reality of society is that people are very rarely have the ability to make decisions based on ethics. This will all blow over, Gawker will do dumb, but effective, exploitative shit again; guys like Patrick will make the same platitudinous comments disapproving of the company. So it goes.

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Monkeyman04

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He posted this article today. I think he's staying (for now).

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Quarters

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I still really wish he wasn't at Kotaku. It just bums me out every time I think about it.

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stryker1121

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@456nto said:

@bceagles128: We're talking about the world of games journalism here. Not a finance company - public figures. I doubt many video game journalism outlets would employ somebody who has had a history of working at Kotaku (a site that a significant deal of gamers are openly hostile against) because of the backlash it'd cause among the userbase. Gawker isn't exactly helping to improve Kotaku's reputation with this whole gay outing scandal, either. Games writing as a career is no longer realistic and it's very hard to make money doing it - just ask Cara Ellison.

I agree with you that you should never judge an individual on account of the companies they've worked for. Many people who are into video games strike me as a breed of people who would do exactly that, though. Or maybe I'm being pessimistic.

That's a bridge too far. Any backlash from a prospective employer's userbase would be minimal. And frankly, anyone who'd boycott a games' site because Patrick worked at Kotaku shouldn't be the kind of reader a site should cater to in the first place.

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Sergio

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@bceagles128:

  1. The guy wasn't in the public eye.
  2. The guy wasn't "out," so Gawker basically outed him.
  3. Their source was someone trying to blackmail him.

So Gawker outed a gay (or bi) person who isn't a public figure and basically abetted a blackmailer in outing him. The person didn't even go through with it, which is partly why the blackmailing was going on.

If you don't understand the outcry...

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Nardak

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#39  Edited By Nardak

Most gaming websites are becoming more oriented towards doing video content than writing about games in general. I personally dont really read game reviews anymore since I can get a better idea about a game from watching a quick look or from watching a twitch streamer play the game.

I think that Kevin Van Ord leaving Gamespot is a sign that the site is moving heavily towards content that has less to do with the traditional game journalism. A few months back Gamespot also fired a couple members of its staff who didnt appear that frequently in their video content and usually did traditional game reviews. Since then Gamespot has outsourced most of its game reviews. People like Danny O´Dwyer are the kind of game journalists that gaming sites want to hire these days.

The problem that Kotaku has is that it is a site that relies very heavily on the written word. In order to get people interested in the content the staff has to come up with very catchy titles. This can lead to some very clickbaity titles in order to generate views.

While I can understand that Patrick couldnt continue working for Giant Bomb while living in Chigago since Giant Bomb is a site that relies heavily on creating content in collaboration with other staff members. It still is sad to see Patrick kinda disappearing into a site like Kotaku which produces a lot of news that is just kinda copy & pasted from other gaming sites. But as other people have said I also believe that writers who want to write about games dont really have a lot of choiche when it comes to employment. Especially if you want a decent salary.

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None_Braver

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I read a bunch of the Gawker sites but their choice to publish "That Post" last week was one of the dumbest choices I've seen.

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bceagles128

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@sergio said:

@bceagles128:

  1. The guy wasn't in the public eye.
  2. The guy wasn't "out," so Gawker basically outed him.
  3. Their source was someone trying to blackmail him.

So Gawker outed a gay (or bi) person who isn't a public figure and basically abetted a blackmailer in outing him. The person didn't even go through with it, which is partly why the blackmailing was going on.

If you don't understand the outcry...

The only one of those that I think is unique to this story, as opposed to other gross pieces that Gawker runs on the daily is #2. And that's kind of my point.

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larmer

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#42  Edited By larmer

@nardak said:

Since then Gamespot has outsourced most of its game reviews.

From what I recall, Gamespot has been outsourcing most of their game review to freelancers for several years. They were doing it long before all the editorial staff departures.

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Anonymous_Jesse

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I hope so. I haven't read anything since he left giantbomb. Just kind of find gawker gross.

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SSully

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I read a bunch of the Gawker sites but their choice to publish "That Post" last week was one of the dumbest choices I've seen.

The fact that so many of their editors actually believed it was a good decision(and still do) is even worse. Just disgusting.

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Sergio

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@sergio said:

@bceagles128:

  1. The guy wasn't in the public eye.
  2. The guy wasn't "out," so Gawker basically outed him.
  3. Their source was someone trying to blackmail him.

So Gawker outed a gay (or bi) person who isn't a public figure and basically abetted a blackmailer in outing him. The person didn't even go through with it, which is partly why the blackmailing was going on.

If you don't understand the outcry...

The only one of those that I think is unique to this story, as opposed to other gross pieces that Gawker runs on the daily is #2. And that's kind of my point.

I think you completely fail to note that this guy wasn't in the public eye. He wasn't a hypocritical politician speaking out against gay people. He's not a celebrity that gossip sites like Gawker bother with. He, himself, wasn't in any way famous or of any note, other than being related to someone else that was more in the public eye. About the only thing that makes him noteworthy is that he works for a Gawker competitor. I guess that might elevate him to "high enough profile" for you if this was intended as a hit piece, and it may have been. Otherwise, he's only a CFO, not a CEO or president, and he hasn't committed any crimes. He's a tiny blip on the radar for the vast majority of people.

Real journalists generally have no problem publishing material that might have involved shady dealings as long as it serves a purpose. The problem here is that this piece serves no public purpose and involved assisting a blackmailer.

All three things are unique to this story, but I will admit that the second is the biggest issue of the three for most.

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mikemcn

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#46  Edited By mikemcn

Patrick is much better than gawker, he should patreon himself out of there if possible. I'd pay a bit for him to do that. In a world of hugely subjective news coverage, gawker is one of the most subjective. They have an aggressive stance and will trample over anyone in their way, in ways that major media outlets wouldn't. Actually informing people about things is at the bottom of their list.

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Voshterkoff

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It's funny how quickly the self righteous can rationalize away their ethics when their paycheck is on the line.

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ArtisanBreads

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It's funny I just recently totally stopped following Gawker and Deadspin on twitter after being a follower of them for a long time. The final straw for me was calling someone a "Sociopath" in a headline several times (they've obviously done worse, but I had enough by then) and also tweeting the same story like 3 times a day. Then Deadspin was tweeting half about sports and half other things so I had enough of that too. All this happened just a little later and it feels natural.

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Ghostiet

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@mikemcn: I can see why Patrick chooses to stay with publications - it gives him access. He's chasing news and a very specific kind of stories, ones that freelancing or doing on your own is probably much harder, unless you go full hog into it like Cara Ellison did, but even her approach proved to be a one-time kind of deal. Jim Sterling has been doing great solo, since it gave him a way to speak candidly about the industry he's become increasingly jaded about (especially with the treatment he's received from publishers), but I doubt Patrick would be able to do stories like the Xbox DRM stuff or his recent piece on sexual molestation without the backing of a bigger outlet.

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extintor

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#50  Edited By extintor

I completely stopped reading Kotaku after the Hernandez hatchet job on Max Tempkin so have no idea what this relates to. The whole Tempkin affair was truly appalling journalism...there was just nothing about it that was defensible.