Ads are usually run in commercials in-between the news bits. Those are the funny things that take place when Anderson Coopers sexy face isn't on the screen. They are not disguised as news during the main portion of the show.
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Polygon posts ad/re-worded press release as 'News' & deletes user comments [Removed]
- Thread starter Gowans
- Start date
Ads are usually run in commercials in-between the news bits. Those are the funny things that take place when Anderson Coopers sexy face isn't on the screen. They are not disguised as news during the main portion of the show.
Nothing to see here. Business as usual. No need to be upset.
I am sure the New York Times runs corporate press releases, unedited, under the 'News' header.
Foxtastical
Member
Why respond to that instead of what I wrote? I mean, what I wrote was telling you to not respond to those types of accusations and rather instead try to figure out why people are even saying such things.
- There is a huge issue within gaming happening right now, covered in the thread this one is split from.
- Polygon remarked that they wouldn't be commenting on this issue.
- They do do however believe that rehashing press releases while adding no comment, opinion or journalistic flair if their own is newsworthy.
- When questioned on this in the comments, they began actively censoring comments and said that, effectively, criticism wasn't allowed.
That is the issue.
- Polygon remarked that they wouldn't be commenting on this issue.
- They do do however believe that rehashing press releases while adding no comment, opinion or journalistic flair if their own is newsworthy.
- When questioned on this in the comments, they began actively censoring comments and said that, effectively, criticism wasn't allowed.
That is the issue.
Hydrogen Bluebird
Member
ThusZarathustra
Member
I NEED SCISSORS
Banned
Polygon are an embarrassment on so many levels.
Here's an example of what I wrote for IGN many years ago which was based on the SEGA press release announcing the Alexander expansion to Rome: Total War
http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/05/04/pre-e3-2006-rome-total-war-alexander-announced
I'd like to think that I put a little more effort than just copy & paste
http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/05/04/pre-e3-2006-rome-total-war-alexander-announced
I'd like to think that I put a little more effort than just copy & paste
RomanticHeroX
Member
Running ads, prompting ethics questions, and doing it all without actually being paid for it? This really is a brave new world of games journalism.
Graphics Horse
Member
I'm just curios why they run UK specific news that the UK sites themselves don't seem to cover. Not Edge Online, not CVG, not Eurogamer..
Polygon is normally so US centric that their games overview section doesn't even bother to list a currency next to the game's price.
Polygon is normally so US centric that their games overview section doesn't even bother to list a currency next to the game's price.
DjangoReinhardt
Thinks he should have been the one to kill Batman's parents.
If they're not being paid, then how are readers supposed to trust a news site running free advertisements for an entity about which they are supposed to provide critical coverage? And running those ads as news?
I'd say Pizza Hut and Microsoft can tell people about this important "information" on their own.
Delusibeta
Banned
That's actually a fair point, considering that the Polygon article went up at 4pm GMT. Although I suppose that's still a full hour before clocking off time. Maybe the whole Florencecourt thing has been noticed, by UK games journalists at least. Hell, not even IGN UK touched this.
I agree with this. I have to write about press releases because that's how I get a lot of my information, but when I do, I try to have a few jokes or something slightly surprising or delightful. Sometimes I fail at that though, but it's not cause I'm suckling from the PR teat, it's because I'm doing a lot of work on my own each day.
I spend most of my day infuriated or annoyed by PR. I try to circumvent them, but when I do, someone at the developer usually gets in trouble and the PR team tightens the reigns.
I don't stop trying though.
Flachmatuch
Member
I wouldn't consider it "controversial" - I'd consider it "censorship". If, say, I made a comment on some nuclear reactor-promoting article, or one that downplays the effects of Fukushima, in which I point out (in a polite and cultured way, supported by facts) NBC's connection to GE and GE's connection to nukes, and it got deleted, well, it'd be censorship, regardless of whether they're legally allowed to do it or not. It's of course something that's a million times as important as this tempest in a teapot - although this one is much, much funnier, since the people involved are so petty, narrow minded and unprofessional and the effects are not exactly earth-shaking. This is how shit goes. I mean, it'd be pretty much impossible to maintain this level of intentional ignorance otherwise.
While they may not run unedited corporate press releases, they sure are proud to send some important articles for government approval. The NYT is worse than the entirety of the gaming press, which no sane person could confuse with journalism.
Like dancing with Skyrim wasnt enough.
chickdigger802
Banned
Not seeing anything out of ordinary here (timing is great though). Deleting comments is retarded though.
ThusZarathustra
Member
The worst part is that they got more advertising out of this fucking ridiculousness than if Polygon hadn't run the story at all. Polygon probably did them a huge favor with this, in all honestly.
If press releases are going to be posted as information for readers, they should be precisely labeled as such and shouldn't simply be regurgitated and vaguely re-worded in an effort to post them as some form of content written by the site's editors.
Gamasutra sticks completely unedited press releases into their own section of the site and labels them appropriately, and that is the way press releases should be posted if they are going to be at all. Gamasutra also discloses openly that they put out press releases in conjunction with a PR firm. Transparency goes a long way.
Florence's article revolved around the notion of the perception of impropriety in the midst of close relationships between games media and marketing. The reason something like this can be viewed as problematic in light of that is because of how it comes across. In Gamasutra's case there is full disclosure that they are putting up a press release and nothing more, because they do not re-word a bit of it in a way that could seem like they are somehow endorsing it.
Deleting critical comments, again, only adds to that sense of impropriety and leads people to believe that there is something to hide. It's exactly what got Lauren Wainwright in even more trouble. She went on a deleting spree and also hid her Twitter account instead of confronting the issue head-on, which only added to the sense that she knew she was in the wrong.
i don't understand people who don't understand Justin's sarcasm
Publish it verbatim, clearly informing that it's a press release or have a writer give it a spin as Giant Bomb did. Publishing it ipsis verbis like the press release with authorial attribution to a staff writer is dishonest. And considering all the lately developments about PR and news relations and polemic it's stupid. Naively stupid.
So I think this is an argument about what you think is important.
Yes, they actually are.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
Coming from the man who says things like us journalists have to stick together. You can always tell when someone has good professional ethics when they spout out lines akin to "snitches get stiches" or other prison ground drivel.
He puts his Tweets in all caps because he is being super serious in them.
Barbacoatl
Banned
You won't see the NYTimes with an article like this:
Breaking News
Launch of Doritos Clam Chowder causes mayhem
NEW YORK, NJ - Doritos, a Frito Lay company, a filial of Unilever international, of the family of Pepsico, released the numbers of people arrested during the launch of the newly delicious Doritos Clam Chowder (really delicious). The new flavor, set to cause commotion across the nation, is available NOW at a 7 eleven near you.
If that's the issue, then I agree.
Castor Krieg
Banned
Do you see ads plastered as BREAKING NEWS on CNN?
Deleting perfectly valid comments?
I don't see an ethical problem here, I think it's a news. But the article is certaintly lazy for a professional website. It also tells us a lot about Polygon that they'd rather cover this type of news than the Eurogamer/MCV/Wainwright stuff. And deleting negative comments isn't smart at all.
See you at the next Apple keynote
3rdamention
Member
I am simply just not going to read your site. I appreciate manning up and coming in here to defend your decisions, but closing the comments and deleting everything is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
It would have been over by now and everyone would have moved on, but your handling of it has just blown this whole stupid article up into a whole new issue. Good Luck in the future with your site, you are going to be busy I am sure!
ThusZarathustra
Member
i don't understand people who can't who find sarcasm to be situational and when used when uncalled-for being no different than just being disrespectful or glib.
BurnOutBrighter
Banned
Gotta love how Polyon and The Verge let the most raucous fanboy flame wars erupt in the comments sections of their articles, but as soon as it's someone crititicising them, it's Press Reset.
This. I don't enjoy his writing but it has nothing to do with him being silly and dancing with a game he was excited about just for the laughs. People act like it was secret spy cam footage of him jerking off on the disc.
i don't think thats how polygon labeled it either
He if spins fast enough, he might take off and fly over this giant tsunami of shit.
It is (was?) labeled as news.
flyinpiranha
Member
I don't see the big deal. Some people might have wanted to know that. Who cares if it as a press release and they are just regurgitating the information?
It seems that since the Wainwright Gaming Scandal of 2012, everybody is on a witch hunt.
It seems that since the Wainwright Gaming Scandal of 2012, everybody is on a witch hunt.
WrenchNinja
Member
I think the saddest part about these enthusiast sites posting these thinly veiled advertisements is...they do all of this for free.
phantomspiker
Member
Eh, I don't think that Halo 4's promotional tie-in with Pizza hut should be deemed newsworthy. Pizza Hut and Microsoft should be putting the word out themselves through Ads and not "news stories".
PetriP-TNT
Member
GAMES JOURNALISM is my favorite thing this week!
SteveWinwood
Member
Link to the giant bomb story on it? I'm assuming it was Alex navarro...
Barbacoatl
Banned
Contrary to a pizza hut crosspromotion for a halo avatar 4 in the uk, the launch of an apple product is news worthy. For all the rest there's PR.
ThusZarathustra
Member
there are these things called circumstances, and behaviors that are appropriate in them, come here, let me tell you more, as you've obviously never heard of them...
You do understand that it would be worse if they were paid to run this as news, right?