So, I just stumbled across this thread. I read the Escapist piece, and it sounded pretty bad. And it didn't sound at all out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it calls to mind Curt Schilling and 38 Studios. A disorganized company burning through money is totally believable.
Then I skim over this thread, and it sounds like the whole thing is some sort of slur campaign by Derek Smart? I can easily see him trying that. I find it amazing to think that he could succeed - at that or anything. How could a functioning outlet like the Escapist fall for something like that?
If anyone wants to give a quick summary, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll read it more carefully when I'm not constrained for time. Sounds like quite a story.
This is my issue with many of the comments here as well as Roberts' letter to Escapist. Derek Smart is the bogeyman that everyone brings up to try and delegitimize what these 'anonymous sources' have claimed.
Smart may be involved in terms of encouraging disaffected employees to come forward or asking outlets to cover the claims being made, but as far as I'm aware, there is no evidence that Smart colluded with these employees to fabricate the claims.
Smart has a long record of attacking Roberts and his project, and people are getting sidetracked by calling him names. Understandable, but not helpful.
Quick summary:
1. Escapist does an article questioning whether or not SC is doomed -
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...r-Citizen-Controversy-Reaches-a-Boiling-Point
2. Seven ex- and two current employees approach Escapist to air claims about Roberts and his team mismanaging the SC project, including serious allegations about Sandra Gardiner abusing employees and engaging in discriminatory hiring
3. Escapist does some verification on the employees although this later turns out to be somewhat problematic
4. Escapist sends a list of questions to CIG asking for comment on the claims of the employees, giving 24 hours to respond
5. Instead of CIG responding through normal PR channels, Roberts spends 8 hours writing a multi-page conspiracy theory about Smart being behind the claims and generally being flawed and unreliable
6. Escapist didn't get the response from Roberts before publishing the article as it says the response went to spam folder
7. Escapist publishes this article (later amended to include Roberts' response when it was discovered) -
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...alk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company
8 Ortwin Freyermuth (SC lawyer) sends a cease and desist letter to Escapist, giving 24 hours to take down the article, claiming it is defamatory and threatening legal action
9 Escapist says the story is still developing and in the meantime it won't take down the article
10 In the meantime, it turns out that the verification methods used by the author of the article were somewhat unreliable, including claims that 'ID cards' (which were actually just access cards) were used, as well as comparing LinkedIn photos with social media photos.
That's about it up until now, although I may have missed something.
IIRC, Roberts informed them that they'll give them a response before the article publication.
Wow, if that's the case then Escapist looks really bad for not even checking back to see if the response was still forthcoming. At the very least it should have noted in the article as initially published: "CIG was contacted for comment. CEO Chris Roberts indicated that a statement would be forthcoming. We will update this article if a statement is received." Do you happen to recall where you saw that claim about Roberts promising a response?
Zambayoshi, just because you write out a paragraph showing someone's perspective doesn't mean you're actually constructing an argument for why it's OK to do something.
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You haven't made any points that show why any of this was decent investigative journalism, you've just shown the perspective of why someone has the incentive to do really crappy work. And this happens to be a thread about a crappy piece of journalism being crappy.
I'm haven't formed an opinion as to whether Escapist did the right thing or not. I'm certainly not trying to say that the piece was good investigative journalism. If anything it seems that it was a difficult call to make whether or not to publish. If the claims turn out to be true, of course, then the decision will be vindicated. If not, Escapist looks like the worst tabloid outlet spreading scurrilous rumours that are without foundation.
The fact that Escapist has chosen to stand by the article in the face of legal threats indicates to me that several people over there, not just Lizzy Finnegan and John Keefer, are of the view that the claims will stand up and the sources are good. It's not logical that Escapist is so desperate for site traffic that it is willing to die in a ditch over claims that are likely to be disproved. The only other logical (if unsavory) possibility that I see is that the very improbability that CIG will disprove the claims has led Escapist to stand by the article notwithstanding suspicions that the claims are false. That would be a very serious and likely illegal course of action to take.