UncleSporky
Member
I'm pretty sure an advertisement is anything intended to get somebody to buy a product, whether anyone got paid for advertising or not.
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Polygon posts ad/re-worded press release as 'News' & deletes user comments [Removed]
- Thread starter Gowans
- Start date
I'm pretty sure an advertisement is anything intended to get somebody to buy a product, whether anyone got paid for advertising or not.
It really didn't. This is still newsworthy to some. It's the writer's job to inform the reader, and some readers will want to know about this.
Press releases are news.
If you want to call them lazy for just regurgitating it, then yes. It's lazy, but I would argue that there isn't much to investigate in a story like this.
It was a copy and paste from the press release. That's not plagiarism.
It's lazy writing. Now, each publication has different guidelines regarding publishing press releases. If it's a beat story (i.e. shorter than 150 words), most Editors won't want their staff wasting time doing more reporting on it. I mean, Motortrend (if that still exists) is not going to waste time following up on a press release from Ford about some tangential, inconsequential promotion.
In J School, one of our first assignments was actually taking a press release about a fire and about 10 facts to put together a 300 word news article. You were graded on how much substance you added to the story.
And, again, this is not an advertorial. Advertorial's are a relatively newish idea (15 or so years) where an advertiser will actually wholly put together the content and layout and hand it off to you to publish. Republishing a press release has been happening for as long as the idea of public relations existed. By in large, journos (classmates, colleagues, people I've worked with) think they are necessary evils at best.
Flachmatuch
Member
Definitely if you get paid either directly or indirectly for doing this, and imo also if you're manipulated in some way (through your entusiasm and love of games or with "swag") into doing something that increases demand for a product (or even an entire market). So, yep. Pretty much spot on. Almost the entirety of gaming journalism *is* in fact advertising. Sometimes for individual products, at other times for the entire industry in general, but the overwhelming majority of games journalism is to increase and maintain demand for gaming products. That's why it exists mostly. It's not even remotely debatable or controversial imo. And how it's done in gaming is not the even worst side of "market" societies imo.
Doctor Decimate
Member
is this the kind of thing Polygon set themselves up to be entirely against? yep.
do people need to actually learn what "advertorial" is? definitely.
do people need to actually learn what "advertorial" is? definitely.
No, you're conflating an advertisement and an endorsement. I don't think that is an endorsement either.
But by your logic, anything that talks about any product in anything but a negative light is an advertisement.
So where does that end? If Microsoft announced the XBox 720 tomorrow should it not be reported on?
On a smaller scale - should things like double XP weekends in games like Halo or COD not be reported on?
not_so_special
Banned
so,you still dont get it no? .
I guess I don't see a point in holding websites up to that standard. They may have brought that pressure upon themselves. I don't agree with them deleting comments, as the comments here weren't inflammatory or vulgar, but I do think comments should be moderated.
ThusZarathustra
Member
You haven't looked up the definition of advisement recently, have you?
This is why "paid advertising" and "free advertising" are even terms, folks.
DjangoReinhardt
Thinks he should have been the one to kill Batman's parents.
I don't know for certain, but I have absolutely no reason to believe that there aren't parties at Polygon being compensated for this in some fashion.
fastballspecial
Member
I wake up, play my new games, get on Gaf and there's more shit hitting the "journalism" fan. Did these sites/journalists/editors not learn ANYTHING this last week? Shameful, shameful stuff.
funkystudent
Member
Being shills is one thing but deleting the user comments is just pathetic.
They really are setting new standards for games journalism here but not the ones they promised.
They really are setting new standards for games journalism here but not the ones they promised.
Delusibeta
Banned
It's basically Amazon Tony levels of not knowing which way the wind was blowing, and he had the excuse of being a PR guy.
I was also thinking about when there are big sales on games at certain outlets/sites. Reporting on those would become unethical the way some in this thread are talking.
UncleSporky
Member
I didn't pass any judgement on whether or not something should be reported on.
3rdamention
Member
Exactly! Polygon comes out and launches a "new" gaming site that does everything "different." They have "ethics" in a world of gaming journalism that lacks them.
Then, they turn around and do the same thing everyone else does. I didn't like the site design in the first place, wanted to like their model of being a "real" gaming journalism site with all the code of ethics and stuff.
I will never visit the site again. Posting the super advertisement for Pizza Hut is one thing, but to straight up delete every comment and remove commenting all together because they don't like being called out is immature and ridiculous. I will take my eyes and adclicks somewhere else!!!!
This is just my opinion!
Foxtastical
Member
That's how a journalist views it. A marketer certainly doesn't see it this way. It's called a third party or independently sponsored advertisement.
Edit: I'm not saying I view it one way or another, but I'm just pointing out the mental maneuvering.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Oh God... this thread is delicious.
Seriously? That's not what the problem is at all. I don't agree with Vyse comparing Giant Bomb to a random news post, but you are way off.
The fact that you think this is okay, they think this is okay and other gaming sites will run this "news" as okay is the point. It's not okay. Not anymore. Yeah, we were probably at fault for not stopping everyone sliding down the slippery slope, but we weren't really paying much attention to it until Rab Florence pointed out how bad it's become.
This is not news by any stretch of the imagination. It's an advertisement. And I'm fucking tired of being advertised to under the guise of news or personal opinions. It's gross and needs to stop.
Hydrogen Bluebird
Member
I wonder why IGN, probably the biggest games site on the planet, doesn't have stuff relating to the Halo 4 and Pizza hut tie-p.
edit:
I agree with the post above. Games sites need to have a separate press release section like Gamasutra does.
edit:
I agree with the post above. Games sites need to have a separate press release section like Gamasutra does.
I have bad news for you. Enthusiast press is wholly promotional with a few flickers of analysis.
Reviews exist to help you determine what to buy.
I think some of you are really confused.
Barbacoatl
Banned
Better yet, what NOT to buy.
But then you would have you guard up and not be as receptive to the advertising.
Can't have that.
ThusZarathustra
Member
Duh. That's why people take issue with Polygon saying they're doing something different and then acting in exactly the same fashion as everyone else.
If your work is to serve as an extension arm of the PR department of a company then you are useless as a news outlet. Call it what you want: an endorsement, advertisement, PR copy/paste disguised as a news article with authorial attribution even. It doesn't matter and it's all semantics. Just goes to illustrate once more the promiscuous relationship between news outlets and PR. This time it's even on a professional level. PR writes a press release. Press releases it and sources it to a staff writer that only had to copy paste it right from the master's voice.
ShinyBallBoy
Neo Member
Fact is when you are required to post 50 news a day to be 'competitive', the quality and the content of 'some' posts is obviously gonna end up to be stuff like this...
their news jobber was probably about to click "post article", saw this thread and...
daemissary
Member
This would be a total nonissue if:
A) The person writing the post just injected it with something resembling even the slightest bit of original thought.
B) They didn't lock the comments thread!!!
Censorship is always an admission of guilt. If you are confident that you did the right thing, who cares what everyone else thinks.
A) The person writing the post just injected it with something resembling even the slightest bit of original thought.
B) They didn't lock the comments thread!!!
Censorship is always an admission of guilt. If you are confident that you did the right thing, who cares what everyone else thinks.
Conspiracy theories are, like, the manliest thing.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Flawless.
MehsterChief
Member
Oh man...
This whole thing is going into strange directions.
While their article certainly isn't any kind of Press Reset, I don't really mind it. It's about a pr event that could potentially interest some of their readers, just like other sites list Black Friday deals or sales of sites like steam.
People are overreacting at the moment, because of all the things going on right now.
That being said, closing the commentary section is immensely stupid and comes off across just the wrong way.
Nobody wins, everybody loses.
This whole thing is going into strange directions.
While their article certainly isn't any kind of Press Reset, I don't really mind it. It's about a pr event that could potentially interest some of their readers, just like other sites list Black Friday deals or sales of sites like steam.
People are overreacting at the moment, because of all the things going on right now.
That being said, closing the commentary section is immensely stupid and comes off across just the wrong way.
Nobody wins, everybody loses.
Perhaps not you specifically but plenty of others in this thread are.
This seems like a non-issue that is largely a distraction from what happened with Rab Florence.
CNN runs ads
NTimes has ads
Serious journalism has ads.
Hell, most papers have ads that are designed to look like part of the newspaper.
I really don't get this argument. Or how it is only relevant to games journalism...
AND they weren't even paid for this one (outside of page views?). It was just a heads up about an armor code that happened to mention pizza.
NTimes has ads
Serious journalism has ads.
Hell, most papers have ads that are designed to look like part of the newspaper.
I really don't get this argument. Or how it is only relevant to games journalism...
AND they weren't even paid for this one (outside of page views?). It was just a heads up about an armor code that happened to mention pizza.
Did they ever actually say they wouldn't post and/or source press releases?
I'm sure the "we're different" stuff they'd refer to is their very nice looking site and reviews, interesting system of modifying review scores post-release, and their feature articles along with other things.
If a local newspaper offers free ads one day a week, does that mean they don't have any advertisements that day because they didn't get money for the ones they printed?
The entire point of this thing is a spinoff from the ongoing discussion about the incestuous relationship between games journalism/criticism/whateveryouwanttocallit and games PR. It's about the fact that PR has game sites so wrapped around their fingers that they will refuse to acknowledge that there might be anything wrong with the PR/preview/review cycle, and will instead regurgitate any press release given to them as "news."
Microsoft and/or Pizza Hut sent out a press release, and instead of taking time and thinking about whether it was actually important to notify the gaming public of an advertising partnership between Pizza Hut and Halo (despite the fact that the idea of following the outgrowth of the Eurogamer story apparently takes massive amounts of thought and soul-searching regarding whether it's something gamers want to read), Polygon grabbed it, chewed it a little and then regurgitated it to us without thought, as if we were baby birds clamoring for that bit of worm. In the process, they did Microsoft's and Pizza Hut's marketing teams a favor by intentionally or (likely, given the lack of thought obviously involved) unintentionally advertising for them, for free.
And this isn't just a Polygon problem, as evidenced by the fact that multiple, entirely unrelated sites did exactly the same thing at roughly the exact same time.
The whole point of all of this is that it's not about them being paid to write something for Microsoft, because the system is so broken due to the closeness of PR and "journalism" that they don't have to be paid.
ThusZarathustra
Member
No ignoring all the replies to you by people calling you out on your faulty logic is.
Interfectum
Member
These other websites haven't Press Reset though. This one has.
Yeah, I think this is basically it.
It's the lazy writing and the reactionary attitude that's creating the smoke.
More Fun To Compute
Member
These new games journalism cats might talk big now but at night we know they can't sleep thinking about Julian Rignall and his percentages.
OK. Are you suggesting that this information shouldn't be covered then?