Games Journalism 3 - The Staffening

One person's truths is another's lies....been that way since forever. It would be entertaining if it didn't have so much potential to damage the gaming scene....if it hasn't already.

 

what do you call japan's recent censorship craze if not damaging.

 

I already condemn his ethical misconduct; what more do you want from me? I'm sorry, but I just don't share your vendetta against him; I have more than enough of my own to take up my time.

 

Aggh, this is something I really don't like about this thread. All this nitpickery 'pick a post apart one line at a time' until we're far removed from the main point.

I don't have a vendetta against Milo. I don't like him, but I honestly don't know enough about him to be even remotely interested in having a vendetta against him. He's just one of the biggest faces in GG which makes him an easy example to talk about my actual main beef posted way back here. That this thread often accuses other people who criticize GG of being dismissive, while being no less dismissive themselves.

 

1. Okay, what has anyone anti-GG done that you consider "positive"?
2. People that come by here with shoddy arguments- while the likes of Guderian manage to be fairly anti-GG without falling into that trap by both being regulars and making their case reasonably well- aren't going to be treated as well. I don't see the issue with that. They're free to state their opinion and we're free to disagree at length with it.
3. No one has swept Milo's actions under the rug. They're just generally not relevant. I don't think many of us here agree with his broader political views, his shock statements, his occasionally tasteless or fact-light pieces.

Speaking for myself, I just want anti-GG to have the courage to actually debate him on Gamergate on a neutral platform with a moderator that applies the rules neutrally. Have a policy on personal attacks if you're that worried about his tendency to flamebait, but they should just try to outargue the guy for once rather than hiding behind "SILENCE HIM"/"I DON'T FEEL SAFE"/whatever other crybully tactic they're using this week.

 

I apologize for misrepresenting you then, but I must admit though that I'm a bit confused; what exactly are you trying to say? While I have spoken out against dismissing Milo in his entirety, he does have many problems with the way he chooses to conduct himself as a journalist, problems that I agree ought to be addressed.

I think part of the problem here is that instead of directly addressing the specific people who participate in the behavior you have issue with, you're trying to paint the entirety of Gamergate with the same brush and criticizing many of us for something we haven't done.

 

I think part of that is rooted in objectivity; in that it is harder to judge the work of someone like Chu fairly when he repeatedly insults and spread lies about you. Conversely, the fact that Milo has offered a sympathetic ear makes one more inclined to to judge his work on its merits, as opposed to ignoring what he does right in favor of obsessing on what he does wrong.

 

They're fairly low-value clickbait- if based on facts- and certainly more tabloid level writing than journalism, but unethical?

The thing about his hitpieces is that they're based on facts.

Did he write a single factually inaccurate statement in that article?

Did he do anything but present Harper's sordid past in her own words that she expressed of her own free will, under her own name on public forums?

No? Not even a little bit? Nothing at all?

Then I'll just roll my eyes at Milo airing this idiot's dirty laundry in public. It's hardly news, it isn't relevant, and I wouldn't call it journalism, but your hand wringing won't make me do more than think a bit less of him for it.

You're not getting what you want unless you have better reasoning than that.

 

Well, this is interesting. Polaris, the network that has TB, Jesse Cox, Angry Joe, Doger and a lot of others has pulled some shady shit.

Text:

Video in question

 

Wait... whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!?!?!?!?!? BTW, the video has been removed/set to private.

 

Using a journalistic platform to write a factual article. It's entirely factual, if hardly to his credit.

You expect GG to throw Milo under the bus on fairly flimsy pretenses.

 

Suprise! It was public not a long ago, are you surprised Polaris went to damage control mode after this?

 

Ok, since the video is gone and because people who aren't following Polaris very closely (like, for instance, me) might think this comes out of the blue, here's TB talking about the BS Polaris has been pulling for a while, and why he is unable to rock the boat. TLDR: removing videos on vague copyright concerns, horribly mismanaging Civil War and some other stuff.

Fortunately the whole thing has nothing to do TB, Dodger, Angry Joe or the rest of the gang. That's just a Polaris thing, and Genna and TB were very clever keeping their CoOptional content away from Polaris. Other youtubers are a bit more screwed.

EDIT, because :

Well, now I'm not, I just don't follow Polaris or Civil War and was unaware of any related drama. I assume that the video was the Civil War wrap-up clusterfuck, right?

 

Well sorry for not replying sooner, took a bit of time to think of my response (because I'm busy making more starships)

Well, for a movement that's based on fighting for a set of ideals, namely against entrenched corruption and "关系"*, this kind of "situational pragmatism" is rather hypocritical.

*because the English terms isn't strong enough to covey the problem in the game Journalism scene.

[insert incoherent rage here]

 

1 is actually another problem common in this thread. People come in with critique, and one of the immediate responses usually contains some paraphrase of "Okay, but what about AGG?" What about AGG? I'm not talking about AGG.
2 is not the same as what I said. This thread has been, and still frequently is, dismissive of opposing opinions. Another one of the first responses to someone coming in with their opinions is usually some form of "Oh yeah? Well how about you prove this!" after which focus is shifted to the question, not the point the poster raised.
3 is something I am still not convinced off. He is fairly consistently quoted, referenced or defended while the less ethical stuff is rarely talked about. This paints a rather glaring image of people supporting him. Perception is not necessarily equivalent to truth, but then that is part of the whole image problem. And before you pull the 'but he's not relevant' card, if he is not a game journalist then twitter screwing him over is not relevant to this thread either, yet here was the first place I learned of it. Milo getting screwed by twitter is apparently Games journalism relevant, yet his misconduct is not? That's kind of double, isn't it?

Well, mostly just the members of GamerGate in this thread. I cannot say what people in other GG outlets do, as I do not frequent those outside of the what links I get from this thread, but this thread has a tendency to bunker up whenever someone who doesn't say yes comes in.

I think you've just voiced my concern better then I did.

Bleh, probably could have avoided this whole mess if I'd written it that way.

 

I actually watched a little bit of it, before adding my dislike to the ~1500 that were already there, of about 2000 ratings. It was pretty odd and poorly produced, so just didn't think much of it. Considering Polaris' recent fuckups with copyright I'm going to guess another network will receive an influx of decent commentators soon.

As to the ongoing arguments, I think a lot of it comes down to a few people being unwilling to recognize the importance of presentation and labeling when if comes to ethics. I do not hold a retail cashier to the same standard as a Suntrust Compliance manager when it comes to securing customer data. Likewise, how a journalist or platform labels itself is important, and I judge the ethics of their behavior within that label.

Milo runs his op-eds clearly and plainly announced, including his outside motivations. Milo clearly states his politics and his job in representing them. I don't judge Nintendo Power for being pro-Nintendo in its articles, as long as it admits to being owned by Nintendo. Contrarily, Ars Technica's random journalist does not label themselves as a biased party and claim offense when they are labeled such. Unlike Milo they don't clearly separate known fact from conjecture and opinion. So, consequentially I judge them by a higher standard, because that is what they claim to posses. If they did not make that claim, I would not care about them.

TL;DR: The majority of the ethical breaches Games Journalism is accused of is caused by a willful misrepresentation of the journalism they claim to practice. As Milo does not misrepresent himself in the same manner, I do not consider his similar actions to be ethical breaches.

 

Hold it.

1. is is a direct response to the post you were complaining got ignored.

2. [citation needed]

I don't think it unreasonable to call out an opinion being presented as fact.

3. Because Milo's wacky hijinks aren't relevant to the actions taken against him. No one cites his hit pieces as the reason for no-platforming him or taking away his verified tag. It's always "the flamboyant troll makes me feel unsafe by proximity!" or "Yeah, we just don't like him."

I mean, come on, when they're accusing him of calling for an assassination, surely you'll concede that their reasoning doesn't hold water.

 

The video was a mess, with lots of weird stuff going on.

Some extra from TB, it's pretty old and predates this.

What has happened to the Polaris Civil War? • /r/Cynicalbrit

 

That transcript comes from the same livestream as my video, it's one of the meaty bits. Yeah, Polaris has them grabbed by the contractual balls and the one who has the internet weight and clout to maybe push back a bit it is in no position to do so.

Still, this is a bit offtopic since it's only tangentially related to games journalism, so once things have been clarified it would be better to get back on topic.

Milo is still a dick, water is still wet. No cause is so just that an asshole can't support it.

 

It's general industry ethics, though.

 

This makes no sense because there is no such thing as GG leadership position.

You can put on the GG hat and be as loud as you want. But it still takes charisma to be heard, even if it is the charisma of an asshole.

 

I think that you're mistaken that disavowing a vocal spokesperson when he's done nothing to warrant it would help GG.

Incidentally, Leigh Alexander isn't a complete disgrace of a human being for once, gets burned for it by her own supporters:

Leigh Alexander published an article (completely unrelated to GG) by a GamerGate supporter on Offworld. David S Gallant and anti-GG are completely going off on her. • /r/KotakuInAction

I'm more shocked she did this than by the reaction.