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Games Journalism! Wainwright/Florence/Tomb Raider/Eurogamer/Libel Threats/Doritos

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P

PaulLFC

Member
Lime said:
What about David Cook? Isn't he as guilty as this Wainwright character, since they work for the same company that threatened to sue?
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I don't think Dave threatened to sue EG as she supposedly did. I don't think they work for the same company either do they? Is VG247 part of the MCV "network" or whatever? To be honest, Dave has always seemed like a nice guy, and he gives away quite a lot of stuff on his Twitter, presumably the PR stuff he gets given - i.e. he donated his PS3 from this to the sick kids charity.

That doesn't get away from sending the advertising tweet of course, but I don't think he's made anything like as much of a fuss over the situation as Wainwright did. In fact, looking at his Twitter he seems to have realised his mistake and be quite apologetic about it.
 
Z

Zeliard

Member
Varth said:
I see this happen a lot. Editorial columns by trusty contributors often get uploaded by the contributor himself on a given day. I wouldn't be surprised if the EIC didn't read it before the shit hit the fan.
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I don't think that was necessarily the case here. The omissions seemed to coincide pretty neatly with the complaints they received, rather than some sudden realization that the article wasn't proper. I'm fairly certain the article would have remained as-is had outside parties not pitched a fit.
 
M

MC Safety

Member
Varth said:
Can we ever get the discussion to the point where a flight ticket, a taxi ride, a bed and a steak on the table aren't the discriminanting line between a hack and Woodward&Bernstein? Please?

Also, it wouldn't hurt to stop pretending that the whole media has to be Woodward&Bernstein to be honest. Even if the audience has changed, its core is still kids who don't care a fuck about investigative journalism, and would only like to know if FIFA is better than PES or not.

I'm totally content in running an effing buyer's guide each month, so on as I'm doing it in an decent way. There's a bunch of guys I know who love to pose as Woodward&Bernstein or Holy Knight of the "Videogames as Art&Culture" thing while being shady as hell behind the scenes.
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I was only commenting on his hubris.

As for the rest, well, there is plenty of good writing, reporting, and editing done by game writers. Gaming age is traditionally black-and-white in its outlook, and I don't subscribe to that at all. I know how much time, effort, and journalism goes into the average multipage preview, feature story, or interview posted on a Web site or in a magazine.
 
J

JDSN

Banned
Obviously never visiting MCV or Eurogamer again. Oh yeah, horrible first post. Kinda shitty that they removed mentions of Dave Cook even tho the guy apologized for accepting the PS3 and said it was donating it, you would think they wanna cover their asses but they still left Geoff's part. Guess they are only afraid of European retaliation.
 
L

Lime

Member
theSlacker said:
XXAX2.jpg


?
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I don't know what you mean?

Coxy said:
He admitted his mistake, agreed it was shady and is giving a ps3 away



which makes her tantrum look all the worse
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Thanks for clarifying. That actually makes my impression of the shitty pigfest of an industry a little brighter.

PaulLFC said:
I don't think Dave threatened to sue EG as she supposedly did. I don't think they work for the same company either do they? Is VG247 part of the MCV "network" or whatever? To be honest, Dave has always seemed like a nice guy, and he gives away quite a lot of stuff on his Twitter, presumably the PR stuff he gets given - i.e. he donated his PS3 from this to the sick kids charity.

That doesn't get away from sending the advertising tweet of course, but I don't think he's made anything like as much of a fuss over the situation as Wainwright did. In fact, looking at his Twitter he seems to have realised his mistake and be quite apologetic about it.
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Yeah, his response to it after being explicitly told what his behaviour entailed certainly makes it a bit better.
 
C

Corto

Member
Zeliard said:
I don't think that was necessarily the case here. The omissions seemed to coincide pretty neatly with the complaints they received, rather than some sudden realization that the article wasn't proper. I'm fairly certain the article would have remained as-is had outside parties not pitched a fit.
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I read a tweet from Lauren before she locked her account asking Florence to accept a direct message from her through twitter as she wanted to talk with him about the whole thing without making it a dirty laundry public spectacle. That is in direct contradiction with the assumption that the threat of legal action was from her. This is a mess right now. Let the dust settle down before making judgements.
 
S

Snowden's Secret

Banned
I've thought for years that games "journalism" needs a Daily Show, a website that updates a few times daily that simply pokes fun at all the dumb things other outlets do.
 
Schrödinger's cat

Schrödinger's cat

Banned
Lime said:
Posted earlier in the other thread (before the takedown, I think):
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I find it hard to sympathise.

This is what the media does to anyone that isn't them when they think it amounts to a 'good story'. Most of the time it's an average story being fluffed up into something that it isn't.

This, however, is a good story - and it should be reported. Watching it being stifled and cried about is all sorts of double-standards.
 
T

theSlacker

Member
Lime said:
What about David Cook? Isn't he as guilty as this Wainwright character
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Him naming those two people wasn't anything about guilt, or accusations of corruption. They were talking points and examples of how little of an issue some people think the relationship between PR and the journalists are. In a later paragraph he even stated that there are people he keeps an eye on, but isn't doing this to name names.

The only reason those two people were mentioned were because they were easy examples of a recent action that was part of the point of his editorial. Guy even made sure to clarify his feelings about Cook, and how it probably isn't true about Wainwright.
 
P

PaulLFC

Member
Corto said:
I read a tweet from Lauren before she locked her account asking Florence to accept a direct message from her through twitter as she wanted to talk with him about the whole thing without making it a dirty laundry public spectacle. That is in direct contradiction with the assumption that the threat of legal action was from her. This is a mess right now. Let the dust settle down before making judgements.
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Why does her wanting to discuss it in private affect in any way whether or not she may have threatened legal action?
 
R

RedFalcon

Neo Member
MC Safety said:
There's a lot wrong with game journalism, from the wide-eyed kids with no writing and editing skills who are exploited by unscrupulous editors/Web site managers who simply do not want to pay for content, to the professionals who take the tchtochke and openly proclaim how it's going right on Ebay.

I love to retell this story, because it's wholly indicative of everything involved in game journalism. I won't name any names to protect the guilty, but the guy in question is pretty high up on the food chain now...

So I'm at a game event, and Important Game Journalist A is badmouthing, openly badmouthing, the Web site I'm working for. I'm not sure why he's doing it, he seems a bit of an ass, but I have no desire to say anything. Until the guy remarks about how above-board he is, how he is a real journalist in a sea of hot-garbage hacks.

I asked him, "Who paid for your flight?

"Who paid for your hotel?

"Who paid for the travel to and from the airport, to the event, and to this restaurant?

"Who paid for that steak in front of you? And the drinks you've been pounding?"

Well, he hadn't paid for any of it. Not a cent. And he wouldn't pay a dime the entire time he was there.

"Woodward and/or Bernstein you are not, I told the guy."
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As someone who used to work in the field, I can definitely echo this kind of story. Even those that work at sites that claim to have "ethics policies" will take plenty of perks, whether it be paid travel, free food and drinks, etc. Trust me: I saw it happen all too often.

I remember one junket I went to where after visiting the studio to play a game for a preview, the PR team invited everyone to go out for dinner and to a club (all paid for by PR, of course). Everyone but myself took them up on the offer. One of the PR people looked shocked and said, "What? You don't want to party with us? Why?" And I said, "I can't accept any gifts from you guys as it will influence what I write. I'm going to spend the rest of the night working on my preview." But his response was great: "Completely understand that. Have a good night, man."

A lot of the time folks like to make PR out as the bad guys -- as if they can't turn down any gifts. Yes, you can. It's really easy. You just say "no." They can't force you to take them. Sure, it does make the business side of things harder (how does a site that doesn't take any gifts whatsoever compete with a big site that has near everything paid for?), but you maintain your integrity.
 
V

Varth

Member
MC Safety said:
I was only commenting on his hubris.
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I understand. I also get a lot of this shit while on press tour, of course. It's just, venting, really. The steak-and-tickets is a stale argument that pops up in each one of the daily CORRUPTJOURNALISM-gaf threads, and I just think that a healthy discussion should step away from a couple of these bullet points once in a while.

EDIT:

Zeliard said:
I don't think that was necessarily the case here. The omissions seemed to coincide pretty neatly with the complaints they received, rather than some sudden realization that the article wasn't proper. I'm fairly certain the article would have remained as-is had outside parties not pitched a fit.
Click to expand...

That's what I'm saying. I guess Rab uploaded his column on his own, and someone at EG read it only after the ruckus started. Another scenario would be that someone gave him the greenlight for the article hoping it would be the controversial kind of article that gathers lots of clicks without any problem coming out of it.
 
A

alstein

Member
Interfectum said:
Yeah she pretty much doesn't have a leg to stand on which is why she turned to lawsuits and profile lock down.
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And when she tries to poke her head out, she's going to get trolled so hard, and the trolling will be entirely deserved (as long as it doesn't go over the line)
 
M

More Fun To Compute

Member
I feel bad for the RPS guys. They seem to really care about being open and making it clear that game journalists are not the lying, cheating scum that people in comments make them out to be. Then their fellow UK journalists publicly throw a fit and act all oblivious when challenged.
 
C

Corto

Member
PaulLFC said:
Why does her wanting to discuss it in private affect in any way whether or not she may have threatened legal action?
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It just makes it inconsistent. If she wanted to settle the matter away from the public she wouldn't go forth with legal action that would expose her even more to the public. That is what we know (if you believe me that she wrote that tweet. You can believe me.). You can argue that that direct message exchange could go sour and that resulted in a subsequent threat of legal action on Eurogamer. But that is an uncertainty until Rab or Lauren say that much publicly.
 
M

mclem

Member
Meccanical said:
Wow, this is intensifying at an alarming rate.
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There's an old guard of UK games journalism - heck, I mentioned them in the thread a week or so ago about the quality of UK games journalism (seems a long time ago now!), and those folks are still around, have opinions, and often aren't afraid to share them. And - in general, at least - they liked Rab. A lot.
 
J

jaypah

Member
I don't think about it much but times like this really put into perspective the difference between being a gamer and being a part of the gaming community. This won't be posted anywhere on my Facebook feed even though it's populated by people who probably play some form of video game even more than I do. When I posted about Cliff leaving Epic the only comment I got was "who's that?". Yet if Justin Bieber pukes on stage I'll probably see the video posted at least once, by someone who doesn't even listen to his music. It makes me realize how cut off from the rest of my life my favorite hobby is. If it wasn't for my fiancé I wouldn't have anybody IRL to talk about this shit with. They don't even know this is happening and yet I'm glued to this thread and not getting work done lol. It makes me wonder if somewhere out there the RC Car community is having an outrage over bad RC Car journalism?

Anyway, sick article and that picture is both hilarious and sad all at the same time.
 
P

PaulLFC

Member
Corto said:
It just makes it inconsistent. If she wanted to settle the matter away from the public she would go forth with legal action. That is what we know (if you believe me that she wrote that tweet. You can.). You can argue that that direct message exchange could go sour and that resulted in a subsequent threat of legal action on Eurogamer. But that is an uncertainty until Rab or Lauren say that much publicly.
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Well we don't know what would happen in that situation, because Eurogamer complied with whatever request was made and edited the article. The tweet you refer to appears to have been sent after that happened, so she couldn't have proceeded with any legal action at that point even if she wanted to, as Eurogamer had already complied.

To me that tweet seems like her going "uh oh, this news spread fast" and trying to sort things out without adding anything further in public - which she then ended up doing anyway with the SE/consultancy etc tweets. I guess that's why her Twitter is now private.
 
J

Jackpot

Banned
faceless007 said:
She says she only did "consultancy work," whatever that means, but was not actually an employee.
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She actually looks worse if she wasn't being influenced by Squeenix due to how overt her shilling for them is.

Rev. Stuart Campbell ‏@RevStu
Check out these searching questions as Square Enix employee Lauren Wainwright quizzes Square Enix for VG24/7: http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/07/cloud-nine-mitsunori-takahashi-on-dissidia-012/
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Rev. Stuart Campbell ‏@RevStu
"Both of these Square Enix games look fantastic", writes Square Enix employee Lauren Wainwright for @TheSun: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gaming/4375406/Gamings-killer-double-act.html
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B

BigDes

Member
Thought this comment someone made on John Walker's piece was interesting regarding the PS3 giveaway

Looking a the republished original article, she’s probably in breach of several OFT guidelines that come about as a result of the Handpicked Media case a couple of years back.

Basically where a blog post, tweet or any other form of communication is deemed to be paid for (and the chance of winning a PS3 would classify under their guidelines), it has to be marked/differentiated in some way from the posters own personal opinion. Laura’s tweets clearly didn’t confirm to this, specifically:

consumers should understand when they are reading paid-for promotional content.

In practice we would expect there to be a degree of harmonisation in relation to how sponsored posts are disclosed on microblogs such as Twitter.

(http://www.oft.gov.uk/OFTwork/consu...nt-completed/handpicked_media/q-and-a/#named5)
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R

Ragingbegal

Member
Varth said:
You can phrase it any way you want, shield it behind a ton of "I'm sure she isn't, but the doubt is there". It's still libellous. You're implying. I know that, he knows that. EG lawyers know that.

Anywhere else, someone who wrote a piece on that without having proof to back it up would have been asket to stick to the facts. In fact, many would argue that the article was amended because it's sloppy journalism.
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I can't speak for the U.K. but this is absolutely not libelous in the United States, which I realize doesn't apply legally in this instance. But as far what EG actually wrote about journalistic standards, they're spot on for calling this kind of behavior out and naming some of those involved.
Even here he's only going so far as to say her behavior has given the impression of her being a shill even if she is not one. Really, he would be absolutely correct to drop the "impression" part and just flat-out call her a shill.
 
C

Coconut

Banned
I wish I was next to that table I could really go for a Mountain Dew right now I'd probably even enjoy one of those bag of Doritos. This is just a stealth Doritos and Mountain Dew thread isn't it?
 
pants

pants

Member
Not every games writer can be a shidoshi, Nick Des Barres or Casey Loe. From the outside looking in this Lauren person seems to be a shameful excuse of a games writer. This is the impression I get from the available information. Will have to wait to see how this shakes out before I condemn though
 
D

dionysus

Yaldog
What is shocking to me is how there aren't corporate policies to deal with this kind of thing. I have worked for several companies and every one of them has strict rules to prevent even the APPEARANCE of bias. It doesn't matter if there is bias or not, the appearance of bias is what is important.
 
F

Foxtastical

Member
Christ, anyone have a detailed summary? Picking up the pieces, but I wouldn't mind someone that has been following this from the start to summarize it.

Anyways, from what I've read so far, this is hilarious. I very much question the professionalism of some of the people involved (not Rab, I agree with him that criticism is vital).

Also, who the hell is this Lauren person?
 
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