The Latest News About The Latest News
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I'm pleased to announce that as of Monday, seasoned newsman and all-around good guy Patrick Klepek will be joining the Giant Bomb team as News Editor. We've all thought long and hard about how best to expand our focus and provide higher-quality content for you, and adding Patrick to the team will bring exactly that. In addition to bringing his expertise to our current news output, one of the things Patrick will be focusing on is honest-to-goodness original reporting, ensuring that there are even more things on Giant Bomb that you can't find anywhere else.
Why news? Why now? Well, I should probably back up a bit.
Right around the time we started Giant Bomb back in 2008, I grabbed myself an RSS reader and subscribed to almost every single full-text gaming news RSS I could find with the idea that if we were going to start a site with no dedicated news person, I was going to need to be up on what's happening out there in the world. While we focused primarily on covering the games themselves, we'd dabble in news here and there, reporting things when they came our way and, more often than not, linking out to sites that were doing the legwork that we weren't. Beyond positioning some rugged soldiers like Brad Nicholson in direct path of the press release hose, It felt like it would be crazy to get into news. Other people--like Patrick, for example--had that buttoned up.
These days, I almost wonder if everyone decided that there's no money in news reporting or something. The sites that were fully devoted to it seem a little less focused these days. Some of them broke out and got into other types of content at their news team's expense. Others branched out into so much off-topic coverage that I had to cull them from my RSS feed. Still others straight-up vanished. Point being, I'm not getting as much news from the news sites as I used to, but the post count from these sites just seems to go higher and higher. I'm left with way too much digging to get to the important stuff from the authors that matter.
So I've decided to, in my own way, do something about it. We've all known Patrick for awhile and have crazy respect for the work he's done. Everyone's pretty excited about having him here. We've been tossing around names for potential news candidates for what feels like a year now, but none of them felt quite right. Once we began talking to Patrick about coming over here, it didn't take long for all of those other names to sort of fall by the wayside. He'll be working directly out of our office and we'll all be thinking about presenting you with the most important game news out there with the level of insight and experience that you've come to expect from us.
And we'll probably manage to have a good time while we're at it. That, after all, tends to be our way.
But enough about that. What I want from you right now is two things! First, join me in welcoming Patrick to Giant Bomb. Second, I think we all have some ideas about what an ideal news organization should look like these days, but I want to know what you think about it. How do you want your news delivered? Is text the thing? Should we develop some kind of weekly news wrap-up show? Call-ins? A daily podcast where the day's headlines are delivered directly to your earholes? Should we beam our news stories into space so that aliens can know about updated release dates and the reasons behind their favorite studio's layoffs? Should we rope Patrick into some kind of heinous Tested live show segment where he's blindfolded and eating some kind of awful "food" during his first week here? Like I said, let me know.
(Photo by Becky Pineo)
I'm pleased to announce that as of Monday, seasoned newsman and all-around good guy Patrick Klepek will be joining the Giant Bomb team as News Editor. We've all thought long and hard about how best to expand our focus and provide higher-quality content for you, and adding Patrick to the team will bring exactly that. In addition to bringing his expertise to our current news output, one of the things Patrick will be focusing on is honest-to-goodness original reporting, ensuring that there are even more things on Giant Bomb that you can't find anywhere else.
Why news? Why now? Well, I should probably back up a bit.
Right around the time we started Giant Bomb back in 2008, I grabbed myself an RSS reader and subscribed to almost every single full-text gaming news RSS I could find with the idea that if we were going to start a site with no dedicated news person, I was going to need to be up on what's happening out there in the world. While we focused primarily on covering the games themselves, we'd dabble in news here and there, reporting things when they came our way and, more often than not, linking out to sites that were doing the legwork that we weren't. Beyond positioning some rugged soldiers like Brad Nicholson in direct path of the press release hose, It felt like it would be crazy to get into news. Other people--like Patrick, for example--had that buttoned up.
These days, I almost wonder if everyone decided that there's no money in news reporting or something. The sites that were fully devoted to it seem a little less focused these days. Some of them broke out and got into other types of content at their news team's expense. Others branched out into so much off-topic coverage that I had to cull them from my RSS feed. Still others straight-up vanished. Point being, I'm not getting as much news from the news sites as I used to, but the post count from these sites just seems to go higher and higher. I'm left with way too much digging to get to the important stuff from the authors that matter.
So I've decided to, in my own way, do something about it. We've all known Patrick for awhile and have crazy respect for the work he's done. Everyone's pretty excited about having him here. We've been tossing around names for potential news candidates for what feels like a year now, but none of them felt quite right. Once we began talking to Patrick about coming over here, it didn't take long for all of those other names to sort of fall by the wayside. He'll be working directly out of our office and we'll all be thinking about presenting you with the most important game news out there with the level of insight and experience that you've come to expect from us.
And we'll probably manage to have a good time while we're at it. That, after all, tends to be our way.
But enough about that. What I want from you right now is two things! First, join me in welcoming Patrick to Giant Bomb. Second, I think we all have some ideas about what an ideal news organization should look like these days, but I want to know what you think about it. How do you want your news delivered? Is text the thing? Should we develop some kind of weekly news wrap-up show? Call-ins? A daily podcast where the day's headlines are delivered directly to your earholes? Should we beam our news stories into space so that aliens can know about updated release dates and the reasons behind their favorite studio's layoffs? Should we rope Patrick into some kind of heinous Tested live show segment where he's blindfolded and eating some kind of awful "food" during his first week here? Like I said, let me know.
(Photo by Becky Pineo)
Radical. I thought he was a cool dude on the Bombcast, never seen any of his work but I think this will turn out great.
1. Keep it text. Video is inconvenient.
2. Avoid most business stuff, just as you have been.
3. Don't worry about the 24 hour news cycle. We don't care if your article comes out an hour after IGNs, as long as it is better written and fact-checked.
4. Post interesting rumors, but clearly define them as such (just like you did with Gamespot).
5. Be willing to post things and ask questions even if it will jeopardize your relationship with publishers and developers. It sounds obvious, especially here, but you cannot ever sacrifice this principle.
6. OBEY THIS DAMN YOU!
Patrick joins and reports news whilst other people get to do other...stuff! We're all winners!
As for the format I think it's fine the way it is. I don't think we really need daily podcasts or wrap-ups since most of the stuff gets discussed on the podcast anyway. So in short, no change is needed because all it'll do is increase the workload.
A news of the week video feature could be fun, especially if it's like an I Love Mondays for the end of the week. That said I always like the story just being in that big list of stories.
can he do news updates at the top and bottom of the hour on the podcast/live show from a booth labeled news.
Welcome, Mr. Patrick-duder! Good to have you here!
I think a weekly video show about the news would be awesome. That idea about the Tested live show segment you presented is also quite tempting, Jeff. :>
whoa, Klepek is a nice get. this is great news.
I'd love a daily podcast out of giant bomb no matter the content. that beats news stories for sure. but I'll take whatever content you guys are willing to put out.
Sounds great! Is he going to be working with you guys in the office?
Always been a fan of Mr. Klepek's, having him on the bombcast would be most excellent, Welcome to GB Duder!
That's amazing to hear. Klepek's great, so it's nice to see he'll be the news dude for GB. Also: weekly wrap-up is a great idea. Video content is one of GB's strengths, so I think it'd be pretty killer to have that tie into it as well.
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