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[Coxy]

so a ridiculous thread about the Wii U update overclocking the CPU from 1.24GHz to 3.24Ghz got locked for being stupid

Clearly utterly absurd and ridiulous to anyone with even the slightest understanding and with the source being a gaf post quoting TVTropes, utterly laughable and unreliable.

surely no site would....oh

the originator: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/20..._wii_u_system_update_has_boosted_clock_speeds

one of the bigger sites to pick it up:
http://www.vg247.com/2013/05/10/wii-u-latest-system-update-has-increased-cpu-gpu-speed-rumour/

and from those two it spread:
http://www.eurogamer.pt/articles/20...i-u-melhorados-com-a-atualizacao-mais-recente
http://www.eurogamer.it/articles/20...ii-u-cpu-e-gpu-piu-potenti-dopo-ultimo-update
http://www.spaziogames.it/notizie_v...ha-aumentato-le-prestazioni-di-cpu-e-gpu.aspx
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Wii-...by-Latest-System-Firmware-Update-352334.shtml
http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/7108542.html
http://**************/2013/05/wii-u-update-increases-gpu-cpu-speed/
http://mynintendonews.com/2013/05/10/has-the-wii-u-system-update-increased-cpu-and-gpu-speed/
http://www.**********.com/?mode=viewstory&id=202280
http://www.geimin.co.uk/wii-u-latest-system-update-has-increased-cpu-gpu-speed-rumour/
http://www.newsroomamerica.com/story/363025.html
http://www.metronieuws.nl/plus/wii-u-update-maakt-cpu-en-gpu-sneller/xSFmej!IGfps0JRYCF15WYj1nB33A/
http://www.cubed3.com/news/18734/1/rumour-could-the-wii-u-system-update-improve-clock-speeds.html
http://www.meristation.com/nintendo...pu-de-wii-u-aumentan-su-potencia/1365/1863383
http://www.gamnesia.com/news/rumor-latest-wii-u-update-increased-cpu-and-gpu-speeds-significantly
http://purenintendo.com/2013/05/10/rumor-april-wii-u-update-ups-system-clock-speed/

sure they tagged it as rumour but it's pretty sad sites will copy/paste anything another site has said without any kind of fact checking or source seeking when not only is the source completely dodgy as fuck, the rumour itself is ridiculous

 

[jschreier]

That's... wow.

 

[Flightmare]

I'm not sure what to say, just embarrassing

 

[Mully]

Wow.

An open question to jschreier and long time gaming journalists in this thread; do bigger gaming sites, like Kotaku employ fact checkers, or is it all on the journalist to confirm sources?

 

[Lowlander2]

One

Spoiler

small

reason we won't be doing news when our new site finally arrives.

 

[RobotRocker]

If heads aren't rolling at VG247 over this shit. Then I don't know what you could do any more outside of breaking everyone in the industries fingers while they are all at E3 so something so completely idiotic that any decent Journalism correspondence course would teach you in reporting 101. I mean, I have to use a macro to properly express my disdain. A MACRO.

Man that feels better.

 

[Isaccard]

Kotaku didin't pick it up?

Crazy

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Kotaku didin't pick it up?

Crazy

too many penis shaped buildings to write about, something is bound to fall through the cracks.

 

[hirokazu]

Sourced from a completely random post on TVTropes? LOL.

 

[jschreier]

Wow.

An open question to jschreier and long time gaming journalists in this thread; do bigger gaming sites, like Kotaku employ fact checkers, or is it all on the journalist to confirm sources?

You don't need a fact-checker to think twice about echoing something that was posted by a random user on TVTropes.

 

[Flightmare]

You don't need a fact-checker to think twice about echoing something that was posted by a random user on TVTropes.

Obviously some sites need one

 

[APZonerunner]

I did journalism training at degree level and it was taught that you should never report anything without two sources that you yourself can verify, even if you're not going to or can't print those sources.

Not really witnessed it in action first-hand it in 5+ years writing about games, I'll admit.

Part of the problem in games journalism is that a lot of it is an echo chamber; it only takes one big place to pick a dud story up and then it travels through the sites, bouncing about. The problem here is very often buck passing - people seem to know about the concept of having two verifiable sources, but many don't bother. If Site A posts a story from Small, Unverifiable Blog X, Site B, C and so on all assume that Site A fact-checked the story in the first place because they're big and trustworthy. As such they do no fact-checking of their own and post the story right away.

This all links into the race for clicks, too - it's better to be second or third than last, and so people rush. You'll notice the highest quality work comes in the form of features, opinion pieces or investigative pieces that aren't time sensitive in terms of their publication. Polygon did great work on the Mega Man reboot story, for instance, but they were able to do that because that story was theirs; they took their time, they cooked it, they didn't have to rush to press within 30 minutes of getting the information because they knew they had it locked down for themselves, their source wasn't talking to anyone else. Imagine that story if it had been pushed out really quickly!

The food analogy is a good one; a pizza is better if cooked at a lower temperature for 25 minutes than blasted on an open flame for 10. The same is true of stories; it's just a sad fact that the constant race for clicks has encouraged a world where it's sometimes better to be fast and occasionally sloppy than slow but always correct. Nobody is perfect, either - mistakes will always happen.

This isn't a problem unique to games journalism, either - you can see it in the sloppiness of rolling news, which values speed similarly. Just look at all the misdirection, bad reporting and misinformation during the Boston Bombings stuff; this is a much more serious subject matter that at its core is suffering from the same problems. Everybody is desperate to be first.

 

[A Human Becoming]

You don't need a fact-checker to think twice about echoing something that was posted by a random user on TVTropes.

But you should have one for a random user on CAG.

Old example. Anyone want to link to something more recent?

EDIT: And 4chan for that matter.

 

[jschreier]

I did journalism training at degree level and it was taught that you should never report anything without two sources that you yourself can verify, even if you're not going to or can't print those sources.

Not really witnessed it in action first-hand it in 5+ years writing about games, I'll admit.

Part of the problem in games journalism is that a lot of it is an echo chamber; it only takes one big place to pick a dud story up and then it travels through the sites, bouncing about. The problem here is very often buck passing - people seem to know about the concept of having two verifiable sources, but many don't bother. If Site A posts a story from Small, Unverifiable Blog X, Site B, C and so on all assume that Site A fact-checked the story in the first place because they're big and trustworthy. As such they do no fact-checking of their own and post the story right away.

This all links into the race for clicks, too - it's better to be second or third than last, and so people rush.

But it's not like we're talking about IGN and GameSpot here. I'm thumbing through that list of outlets that picked this up and I've never heard of most of those sites. A lot of them seem to be run by volunteers, not professional reporters.

 

[jschreier]

But you should have one for a random user on CAG.

Old example. Anyone want to link to something more recent?

EDIT: And 4chan for that matter.

Do you think it adds to the discussion to bring up the same article we've talked about in this very thread ad infinitum because you feel like taking shots at me and my website?

 

[APZonerunner]

But it's not like we're talking about IGN and GameSpot here. I'm thumbing through that list of outlets that picked this up and I've never heard of most of those sites. A lot of them seem to be run by volunteers, not professional reporters.

Sorry, updated my original post a bit and fleshed it out further. Might be worth a re-read.

Looking at that list - You're right, absolutely. This is one case, and a story that is quite obviously fake to a person with knowledge of how the hardware would work and if such a thing could be physically possible.

Smaller sites are beholden to the click race more than bigger ones, too. They're fighting for every page impression harder, with - let us be fair - significantly less resources and in many cases no resources. I've been there, years ago! These are people chasing every ad impression to try to make some cash, or worse still people chasing every page impression in order to send a nice statistics run-down to a PR to secure the next review copy of a game. It makes them hungry, and that's good, but it also makes people sloppy. Put that next to inexperience and the fact that just about anybody can start a wordpress blog and hammer F5 on GAF or GameFAQs waiting for a "story to break" and... well, lo.

Generally speaking, however, what I described (racing leading to sloppiness) happens a lot across the board and even on bigger sites, just in smaller and often less obviously wrong stories.

Do you think it adds to the discussion to bring up the same article we've talked about in this very thread ad infinitum because you feel like taking shots at me and my website?

I think you do great work, Jason, but I don't think he's really picking on you or Kotaku; just more of a "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" sort of thing. I think we've all cocked up in that way - trusted in a source or another website too much, or gotten over-excited about a rumour - at some point, haven't we? It's almost part of earning your stripes.

 

[A Human Becoming]

Do you think it adds to the discussion to bring up the same article we've talked about in this very thread ad infinitum because you feel like taking shots at me and my website?

I'm just saying what you say "you don't need a fact-checker to think twice about" is something you and your site do.

Not a personal shot against you or Kotaku. Don't act so superior to their mistakes is my point. Pot calling the kettle black.

 

[Orca]

I did journalism training at degree level and it was taught that you should never report anything without two sources that you yourself can verify, even if you're not going to or can't print those sources.

Not really witnessed it in action first-hand it in 5+ years writing about games, I'll admit.

Part of the problem in games journalism is that a lot of it is an echo chamber; it only takes one big place to pick a dud story up and then it travels through the sites, bouncing about. The problem here is very often buck passing - people seem to know about the concept of having two verifiable sources, but many don't bother. If Site A posts a story from Small, Unverifiable Blog X, Site B, C and so on all assume that Site A fact-checked the story in the first place because they're big and trustworthy. As such they do no fact-checking of their own and post the story right away.

This all links into the race for clicks, too - it's better to be second or third than last, and so people rush. You'll notice the highest quality work comes in the form of features, opinion pieces or investigative pieces that aren't time sensitive in terms of their publication. Polygon did great work on the Mega Man reboot story, for instance, but they were able to do that because that story was theirs; they took their time, they cooked it, they didn't have to rush to press within 30 minutes of getting the information because they knew they had it locked down for themselves, their source wasn't talking to anyone else. Imagine that story if it had been pushed out really quickly!

The food analogy is a good one; a pizza is better if cooked at a lower temperature for 25 minutes than blasted on an open flame for 10. The same is true of stories; it's just a sad fact that the constant race for clicks has encouraged a world where it's sometimes better to be fast and occasionally sloppy than slow but always correct. Nobody is perfect, either - mistakes will always happen.

This isn't a problem unique to games journalism, either - you can see it in the sloppiness of rolling news, which values speed similarly. Just look at all the misdirection, bad reporting and misinformation during the Boston Bombings stuff; this is a much more serious subject matter that at its core is suffering from the same problems. Everybody is desperate to be first.

The refusal to link back to the original source also feeds this. Blog X posts some ridiculous rumour. It gets fed to tip lines on a couple larger sites, where it's often posted as a rumour without sourcing the original article. Those sites have enough readership that it spreads a bit on twitter/facebook and gets picked up by a still larger site. They might source that smaller site, but that's hit and miss.

Now there's enough "sources" for a big site to report it as a 'somewhat credible' rumour if someone's having an off day. Once a big site lends some credibility to it, it's everywhere.

And in the ultimate version of that, nobody checked anything. Maybe one guy emailed someone at a company involved, then posted it as 'contacted 'company x' but got no reply'

 

[Delusibeta]

Do you think it adds to the discussion to bring up the same article we've talked about in this very thread ad infinitum because you feel like taking shots at me and my website?

The internet never forgets! Or, to be more precise, at least one user will remind everyone.

And to address the other post, both NintendoLife and VG247 are [Euro]Gamer Network sites, so they're large enough to get the attention of the GN advertising droids. Obviously, the two Eurogamer sites are also Gamer Network members,

 

[jschreier]

I'm just saying what you say "you don't need a fact-checker to think twice about" is something you and your site do.

Not a personal shot against you or Kotaku. Don't act so superior to their mistakes is my point. Pot calling the kettle black.

The CAG article you link was four years before I started working here.

The photoshopped retail listing was a dumb gaffe, but that was an image that appeared - to me, one month on the job, before I knew just how often these things are photoshopped - to have some legitimacy. Even realizing in retrospect how stupid it was, I think sharing a realistic-looking image that turns out to be fake is on a totally different level than reporting something written by a random TVTropes poster.

Of course, everyone makes mistakes, and I'm not trying to condemn anyone for reporting something dumb. There are far worse problems in game journalism than echoing random rumors. The idea of a "fact-checker" is kind of obsolete, though.

 

[APZonerunner]

The refusal to link back to the original source also feeds this. Blog X posts some ridiculous rumour. It gets fed to tip lines on a couple larger sites, where it's often posted as a rumour without sourcing the original article. Those sites have enough readership that it spreads a bit on twitter/facebook and gets picked up by a still larger site. They might source that smaller site, but that's hit and miss.

Now there's enough "sources" for a big site to report it as a 'somewhat credible' rumour if someone's having an off day. Once a big site lends some credibility to it, it's everywhere.

And in the ultimate version of that, nobody checked anything. Maybe one guy emailed someone at a company involved, then posted it as 'contacted 'company x' but got no reply'

I'll add to this, as well. Often the average reader or GAF-browsing person will shrug and say "Well stop rushing!" But it really isn't that easy a problem to solve.

It's a Mexican standoff; there's a ton of gaming websites pointing the 'fastest finger news' gun at each other. Nobody wins all the time, but the quick-draw of news tends to dole our victories and defeats fairly evenly, so everybody on the whole gets a slice.

I know a lot of editors think that it's all horse shit and hate the way stories like the above can happen, but nobody wants to be the first to put their gun down. If you're the first to put your gun down people have a tendency to jump on your head like it's a ripe watermelon. If you say "we're not doing this shit any more," you just lose the slim chance you had of being the first to break a story, which for many would be a major and significant source of views. The features side is more time consuming to do and more difficult to break through on; and so the fear is that if you stop following that line of competing in the news race you'll pay the price in dwindling page impressions, ad revenue and growth. People could lose jobs, or for dreaming hobbyists they may never get the chance to make it into a job.

It ends up being far easier to break out of this cycle if you have money behind you; if you're part of a massive network like Kotaku or Polygon, or have start-up investment money like Giant Bomb did when it began. These sites have the budget to lean back off or have the power to make deals like Polygon's Internet Explorer sponsorship that allow more arty stuff to go ahead.

There are sites that still manage to do something fresh, new and different and avoid getting trapped in that whirlpool, but the majority of new pop-up sites tumble down that same hole and end up in the Mexican standoff of 'fastest news.'

 

[JDSN]

I'm just saying what you say "you don't need a fact-checker to think twice about" is something you and your site do.

Not a personal shot against you or Kotaku. Don't act so superior to their mistakes is my point. Pot calling the kettle black.

Like someone said earlier in this thread, pay attention to the writers, not the site itself. Sadly that isnt the way it should be considering that the editorial head should share part of that responsability, which brings me to the point im trying to get across:

Brian Crecente is a fucking magician-looking hack.

 

[akidnamededdy]

The idea of a "fact-checker" is kind of obsolete, though.

Yeah, screw accountability in reporting.

 

[APZonerunner]

Yeah, screw accountability in reporting.

Well, a fact checker role in and of itself is certainly obsolete in the sense that an online-based reporter in 2013 should really be doing comprehensive fact-checking by themselves.

 

[jschreier]

I did journalism training at degree level and it was taught that you should never report anything without two sources that you yourself can verify, even if you're not going to or can't print those sources.

Not really witnessed it in action first-hand it in 5+ years writing about games, I'll admit.

Part of the problem in games journalism is that a lot of it is an echo chamber; it only takes one big place to pick a dud story up and then it travels through the sites, bouncing about. The problem here is very often buck passing - people seem to know about the concept of having two verifiable sources, but many don't bother. If Site A posts a story from Small, Unverifiable Blog X, Site B, C and so on all assume that Site A fact-checked the story in the first place because they're big and trustworthy. As such they do no fact-checking of their own and post the story right away.

This all links into the race for clicks, too - it's better to be second or third than last, and so people rush. You'll notice the highest quality work comes in the form of features, opinion pieces or investigative pieces that aren't time sensitive in terms of their publication. Polygon did great work on the Mega Man reboot story, for instance, but they were able to do that because that story was theirs; they took their time, they cooked it, they didn't have to rush to press within 30 minutes of getting the information because they knew they had it locked down for themselves, their source wasn't talking to anyone else. Imagine that story if it had been pushed out really quickly!

The food analogy is a good one; a pizza is better if cooked at a lower temperature for 25 minutes than blasted on an open flame for 10. The same is true of stories; it's just a sad fact that the constant race for clicks has encouraged a world where it's sometimes better to be fast and occasionally sloppy than slow but always correct. Nobody is perfect, either - mistakes will always happen.

This isn't a problem unique to games journalism, either - you can see it in the sloppiness of rolling news, which values speed similarly. Just look at all the misdirection, bad reporting and misinformation during the Boston Bombings stuff; this is a much more serious subject matter that at its core is suffering from the same problems. Everybody is desperate to be first.

To extend your analogy, the approach taken by Kotaku (and Polygon, and every other large gaming website) is to dish out both 10-minute and 25-minute pizzas on a regular basis. I don't think this is a problem. Our job is to make sure those pizzas are delicious and interesting and truthful no matter how long they take.

The conclusion that speed equates to poor quality is off-base. Just two days ago, I got a tip that TimeGate had laid off its staff. I made some calls, confirmed the news with a second source, and put it up on Kotaku within half an hour. There was no quality sacrificed there. People don't often realize just how hard the job of a good reporter can be, and how hard some of us try to be both fast and right.

One bigger problem may be that websites like Reddit and NeoGAF, where people aren't held accountable, can cannibalize traffic from websites that are pickier about what they cover. Which may be why you have sites like VG247 doing their best to aggregate everything on the Internet as quickly as possible. The business model works.

 

[jschreier]

Yeah, screw accountability in reporting.

I'll echo this:

Well, a fact checker role in and of itself is certainly obsolete in the sense that an online-based reporter in 2013 should really be doing comprehensive fact-checking by themselves.

Not to mention, the idea of a dedicated fact-checker comes from print, where it's impossible to fix mistakes. On the web, misspelling a name or getting a date wrong is not a very big deal because it can be corrected instantly.

 

[APF]

Print can (and does) also run corrections. Reporting is better with actual fact checkers regardless of whether you're online or off. The idea that it's "obsolete" is both insane and lamentably true.

 

[Jintor]

Not to mention, the idea of a dedicated fact-checker comes from print, where it's impossible to fix mistakes. On the web, misspelling a name or getting a date wrong is not a very big deal because it can be corrected instantly.

Right, except that the initial incorrect assertion will spread like god damned wildfire and becomes impossible to pull back. A site might excuse itself and fulfil its accountability bargain, but the damage will already have been done. For minor stuff like a misspelt name or an incorrect date, whatever. But it's always better to catch the error before it goes live.

 

[jschreier]

Print can (and does) also run corrections. Reporting is better with actual fact checkers regardless of whether you're online or off. The idea that it's "obsolete" is both insane and lamentably true.

Maybe if Google didn't exist, you would have a point. The idea of a dedicated fact-checker comes from the days when facts were difficult to check and even more difficult to correct. Things are much different today. Reporters and editors check their own facts.

Note that this TVTropes stuff is not a fact-checking issue but a sourcing issue.

Right, except that the initial incorrect assertion will spread like god damned wildfire and becomes impossible to pull back. A site might excuse itself and fulfil its accountability bargain, but the damage will already have been done.

I think we're talking about two different things. A fact-checker is someone who makes sure names are spelled properly and dates are all correct. He/she checks facts. If I write a story reporting that 4chan told me Microsoft's new system is called Xbox Hitler, and that spreads around the Internet, that isn't a fact-checking problem. It's a reporting gaffe.

 

[APF]

Maybe if Google didn't exist, you would have a point. The idea of a dedicated fact-checker comes from the days when facts were difficult to check and even more difficult to correct. Things are much different today. Reporters and editors check their own facts.

You are aware actual news organizations still do employ fact checkers? Further, are you asserting you would not have fewer errors and issue fewer corrections if you were able to employ dedicated fact checkers? Or that they are not a good idea for features vs hour-to-hour news? Come on, give a little here. I know gaming isn't hard science or even tech news, but I still see factual errors that are not corrected all the time.

 

[jschreier]

You are aware actual news organizations still do employ fact checkers? Further, are you asserting you would not have fewer errors and issue fewer corrections if you were able to employ dedicated fact checkers? Or that they are not a good idea for features vs hour-to-hour news? Come on, give a little here. I know gaming isn't hard science or even tech news, but I still see factual errors that are not corrected all the time.

I mean, I won't argue that having more people reading and fact-checking a story would be a bad thing, but good reporters and editors should be zapping and correcting those factual errors themselves. The role of a reporter has evolved quite a bit in the Internet age, for better or worse.

 

[RobotRocker]

I mean, I won't argue that having more people reading and fact-checking a story would be a bad thing, but good reporters and editors should be zapping and correcting those factual errors themselves. The role of a reporter has evolved quite a bit in the Internet age, for better or worse.

The problem is that the games media is in a constant race to the bottom for the journalistic equivalent of yelling "FIRST!1!" in a comments section and facts go out the window when there's money to be made and the culture of "Report first, make corrections later" is even more endemic in the videogames media than other medias.

The problem in comparing it to the rest of the journalism world is that the journalism world is getting introspective about their role. In Britain, they had the Leveson Inquiry into the culture and practices of the media and found that the press had repeatedly breached the public's trust and privacy in a rush to file copy first and were purposely demonising minority groups of people for shock value and to induce hatred so they sell. Some papers (The Express in particular) even lied in their headlines and buried facts in the articles simply to push their own agenda and build audience loyalty. There's no movement like that in games journalism and the only introspective thing is whatever dumb bullshit accusation that people are getting paid for reviews or paid by feminists and not actual problems with the media (And that's a whole different derail)

For example The treatment of people like Adam Orth and Shaylyn Hamm recently broke so many National Union of Journalists and Press Complaints Commission code of conduct rules it would make your head spin and It's shocking Tom Bramwell and Patrick Garatt (For example) weren't called to task over some of their coverage of Adam Orth as it broke so many articles of the PCC codes of practice that any paper or magazine would have been pulled up to explain how shockingly bad they dealt with it if it was published elsewhere. The state of games journalism is so shockingly bad that it can't even deal with the ethics of respecting a person's right to privacy (Such as the stalking camps outside Adam Orth's twitter account and the headlines yelling about him getting fired). Basic legal 101 in reporting. Respect your subjects privacy unless it's absolutely the public interest.

There's just so many failures at basic level in the rush to be first that the industry really needs to step back and say "We're doing this extremely wrong and something needs to be fixed" and do this before something really goes wrong.

 

[JABEE]

I think the games media is quick to slap "RUMOR" on any far-fetched story that they can find on message boards as long as they can edit it later.

That is why blog journalism in general has set back the pursuit of accurate news. Blogs are willing to trade their credibility in the name of being first (clicks).

Once one outlet runs with a story it's a game of catch-up to get your clicks out of the story. Does Kotaku require two reliable independent sources to post a "RUMOR" or is it still within the Kotaku editorial guidelines to repost stories found by other outlets without independent verification?

I think the risk to credibility is smaller than the increased traffic you can get from the most off-the-wall and zany rumor. It's why these editorial practices are not questioned or changed, they are just how things work in blogging. I don't know if that is still the case at Kotaku.

 

[jschreier]

The problem is that the games media is in a constant race to the bottom for the journalistic equivalent of yelling "FIRST!1!" in a comments section and facts go out the window when there's money to be made and the culture of "Report first, make corrections later" is even more endemic in the videogames media than other medias.

Is it really? Did you miss the whole Boston Marathon thing?

 

[jschreier]

I think the games media is quick to slap "RUMOR" on any far-fetched story that they can find on message boards as long as they can edit it later.

That is why blog journalism in general has set back the pursuit of accurate news. Blogs are willing to trade their credibility in the name of being first (clicks).

Once one outlet runs with a story it's a game of catch-up to get your clicks out of the story. Does Kotaku require two reliable independent sources to post a "RUMOR" or is it still within the Kotaku editorial guidelines to repost stories found by other outlets without independent verification?

I think the risk to credibility is smaller than the increased traffic you can get from the most off-the-wall and zany rumor. It's why these editorial practices are not questioned or changed, they are just how things work in blogging. I don't know if that is still the case at Kotaku.

These things are not one-size-fit-all. Different stories require different approaches. If you want to bring up some hypothetical examples, I'd be happy to tell you how I personally would approach them.

 

[RobotRocker]

Is it really? Did you miss the whole Boston Marathon thing?

The Boston Marathon isn't a great example because a lot of media outlets actually held off till they had more solid sourcing from the police and FBI while the NY Post shot its foot off first. And then CNN decided that was fun too (Though arguably that's whenever Wolf Blitzer decides to open his mouth). It's actually a fine example of speed Vs accuracy. The NY Post was correct but ran too quick with "Person of interest" becoming "Suspect" as well (Though you have another derail of possible Murdoch tabloidisation and using minorities to bait into page views and sales). And then you add on top of that the pressure cooker situation of a live newsroom with up to the minute data and reports flying in your face. You start to understand where wires get crossed in current affairs reporting.

While with videogames, well. It shouldn't really be a race. The time should be there for accuracy since it's not life or death. It's videogames. And it's the sort of race to the bottom, "oh shit better get this up before Destructoid or Eurogamer get on it too and have all the links directed to them!" that leads to bad reporting, reporting rumour as fact and no one having a clue how to handle reporting that has a person on the other end of it like the Adam Orth debacle.

Time should be on the medias side. The problem is no one uses it. I mean, my house was one of the first broadband adapters in Ireland in 2002 (Don't laugh) and I'd have access to as many news sites as I like with trailers and everything. But I'd still get up every morning without fail to read Digitiser on Teletext because they were accurate, detailed (even for the 200-300 word limit they had each page) and funny to boot in their news, reviews and articles. They took their time and even when broadband internet was starting to penetrate into Britain and Ireland, took in near two million viewers daily and created a cult audience that actually rebelled when they were told to remove the humour. There's none of that cultivation any more, none of that personality or humour because it's so quick that there's maybe only room for a snide comment or two. Only Giant Bomb seems to try, but their content is limited daily. There has to be a way that you can get that quality experience, every day, without sacrificing accuracy to do so and build up an audience.

 

[jschreier]

Can you elaborate on your problems with how gaming outlets covered the Adam Orth story, RobotRocker?

 

[Orca]

To extend your analogy, the approach taken by Kotaku (and Polygon, and every other large gaming website) is to dish out both 10-minute and 25-minute pizzas on a regular basis. I don't think this is a problem. Our job is to make sure those pizzas are delicious and interesting and truthful no matter how long they take.

The conclusion that speed equates to poor quality is off-base. Just two days ago, I got a tip that TimeGate had laid off its staff. I made some calls, confirmed the news with a second source, and put it up on Kotaku within half an hour. There was no quality sacrificed there. People don't often realize just how hard the job of a good reporter can be, and how hard some of us try to be both fast and right.

One bigger problem may be that websites like Reddit and NeoGAF, where people aren't held accountable, can cannibalize traffic from websites that are pickier about what they cover. Which may be why you have sites like VG247 doing their best to aggregate everything on the Internet as quickly as possible. The business model works.

That's the part that's on readers. Sites that do nothing but put up every rumour they hear, even to the extent of putting up contradictory rumours and presenting them as equally valid, get traffic.

First to the news, even if it's wrong, gets the hits. Last to the news and getting everything right gets you nothing. It's the same as people wanting comprehensive reviews that don't go up for a week, but then they don't read those reviews because they already bought the game - but they read the 'exclusive' one that went up three days to a week before the game came out.

Games journalism and coverage of the industry in general can get a whole lot better, but it's not going to if readers don't punish the shitty stuff by not going back. It's really no different from the hordes of people complaining about the shitty nature of TV these days, but all they watch is the Jersey Shore type shows they complain about.

 

[RobotRocker]

Can you elaborate on your problems with how gaming outlets covered the Adam Orth story, RobotRocker?

Right, My problem with the coverage was how newsworthy it became when he was let go as it should have then become a personal matter and not in the public interest. However, there were articles here from Eurogamer and Kotaku after Game Informer reported it.

There's a very healthy argument here that under Press Complaints Comission code Section 3. That once his twitter went on lockdown, it went from a public matter to a personal matter between Orth and Microsoft and the public interest in the story was now gone. Any further reporting was really just rubbernecking at the scene of an accident as as much as the guy was a jerk, In the end, he's a man with a family and who makes a living as much as the rest of us do. It's not healthy reporting or in the public interest. Now I understand that Kotaku is part of the Gawker media group and not in the UK, but Tom Bramwell of all people should know better. Especially subsection ii of the code where it says that there should be significant reason in the article to follow up on the story when there's only a recap of previous events and a quote from David Jaffe. It's flimsy justification for a follow up of what's evolved from a public to personal matters. Arguably it would be a test case of what constitutes a public and private matter when you take into account for social media. And on top of that, Orth didn't want to comment and Microsoft doesn't comment about personal matters, so they should know it's probably best to let sleeping dogs lie on that.

The story really begins and ends with the comments. And the problem is that by dragging it on, it leads on to people thinking that stories such as the Gearbox Artist commenting about Dragons Crown are newsworthy and suddenly we start picking apart every single developer statement as newsworthy because it's slightly controversial and gets hits. It's not a healthy cycle. Neither is the "Churnalism" of recycling PR statements, but it's a dark hole that we don't want to go down. And that's why I have a problem with it. It's a dark hole that will lead to worse journalism if people start pursuing stories that aren't there or have ceased to become newsworthy, yet the journalists don't know where to stop. And it might cost someone innocent their job simply because someone takes the wrong thing from twitter in the rush to grab a story.

 

[jschreier]

It's interesting how many of those "developer says thing omg!" stories originate from NeoGAF. Once I see a thread about something like that here, I know it's going to appear on... certain websites. Of course, the interest and news value of these things will vary. "Gearbox artist has an opinion on Dragon's Crown" is not particularly interesting or newsworthy (and you'll notice that Kotaku did not cover that), but something like, say, Gabe Newell talking shit about Windows 8, which could say quite a bit about the future of Valve games, is most definitely worth reporting.

As for the Orth story, well, I think that unfortunate situation was already a matter of public interest, and at that point it would be irresponsible to just ignore the resolution.

BTW, I'm skimming through that list of British press regulations and I can't say I agree with a lot of the bullet points there. For example: "They must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist." I remember a great quote from New Yorker editor David Remnick:

As he describes the profession, reporting often means “making the same phone call over and over and over again until you’re so irritating that the person you’re calling makes the calculation that it’s better to give you the time that you need rather than have to endure the constant assaults of your phone calls and emails.”

As an example of this tenacity, Remnick recalls the efforts of Seymour Hersh, “one of the greatest reporters I’ve ever known.” According to Remnick, Hersh “was working on the Watergate story. The New York Times needed to catch up with the Washington Post … it was killing them. He needed to get Charles Colson, one of the bad guys of Watergate, on the phone. How did he do that? He got to the office at eight a.m. — nobody gets to a newspaper at eight a.m. — and on a rotary phone, he called Chuck Colson’s home number every 15 minutes till seven p.m. Eight a.m. to seven p.m., every 15 minutes on a rotary-dial phone. … He got Chuck Colson, and there was the front page story.

“When I hear a writer say that they ‘put in a call,’” Remnick concludes, “I want to pull my hair out.”

These lists of rules and regulations for "proper journalism" have never done much for me. To quote another section of that list: "Details of an individual's race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story." That, to use a Britishism, is bullocks.

 

[Delusibeta]

Standard counter argument to criticism of press regulation: Fox News.

Specific counter argument to jschrider's post: harassment is illegal, yo. Also, using details to try to incite the -ism of your choice is bad. Again, see also Fox News.

 

[Lowlander2]

These lists of rules and regulations for "proper journalism" have never done much for me. To quote another section of that list: "Details of an individual's race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story." That, to use a Britishism, is bullocks.

What!? This was one of the dead set first things I learned in Media Ethics, and for good reason. All too often, it can lead to slander and libel cases, but worse, it actively detracts from the news value of any given story. If a detail like race, sexuality, gender, disability or what have you makes no difference to the story, why should it make a difference to the reader? Often, that's not how it turns out in the reader's case, but it is not your job to assume or assess that when penning a story.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but flying in the face of one of the groundwork rules everyone gets right, understands and does not dispute when studying journalism in an accredited institution might lend the haters more ammunition in an effort discredit you. I think you do good work. Great, even. But I could never agree with you on this in a million years.

EDIT: Reading my first paragraph again, I don't want to give the impression that you can't gauge audience reaction, because that's absolutely essential when it comes to chasing stories that will be well received. But that's what you have to gauge: relevance. What sense does it make to go tangential for the sake of going tangential?

 

[Jackpot]

That, to use a Britishism, is bullocks.

you might want to rethink not having that Fact Checker.

 

[NZNova]

That, to use a Britishism, is bullocks.

Bollocks, mate. It's bollocks. I wouldn't normally stoop to correcting spelling but given the context of the thread, and in the general interests of cultural edification, it seems appropriate. Carry on.

 

[jschreier]

What!? This was one of the dead set first things I learned in Media Ethics, and for good reason. All too often, it can lead to slander and libel cases, but worse, it actively detracts from the news value of any given story. If a detail like race, sexuality, gender, disability or what have you makes no difference to the story, why should it make a difference to the reader? Often, that's not how it turns out in the reader's case, but it is not your job to assume or assess that when penning a story.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but flying in the face of one of the groundwork rules everyone gets right, understands and does not dispute when studying journalism in an accredited institution might lend the haters more ammunition in an effort discredit you. I think you do good work. Great, even. But I could never agree with you on this in a million years.

EDIT: Reading my first paragraph again, I don't want to give the impression that you can't gauge audience reaction, because that's absolutely essential when it comes to chasing stories that will be well received. But that's what you have to gauge: relevance. What sense does it make to go tangential for the sake of going tangential?

I am not arguing that a writer should go tangential for the sake of going tangential. But I don't believe in omitting details just because they're not strictly relevant to a story, either. If I am profiling a significant figure or trying to paint a vivid picture or describing an interesting character, and if someone's race or religion or sexuality helps enhance that description, then I'm not sure why I wouldn't want to write (tactfully) about it.

This is all usually irrelevant in hard news reporting, of course - an article about, say, Ubisoft booting Patrice Desilets needs no details about anyone's race or religion - but I think stringent rules like that do more harm than good, if a writer lets them control his/her work. If I am writing a profile about some great game designer and I keep thinking things like "okay, can't mention that he's black... can't mention that he's gay... not relevant to the story..." then the profile might not turn out as great as it would if I felt free to paint the entire picture of this person.

 

[Jackpot]

but I think stringent rules like that do more harm than good

We've seen the results of your "relaxed" rules. Really don't get how you can fail to understand the basic rules of media ethics.

If I am writing a profile about some great game designer and I keep thinking things like "okay, can't mention that he's black... can't mention that he's gay... not relevant to the story..." then the profile might not turn out as great as it would if I felt free to paint the entire picture of this person.

It's a profile. Of course it's relevant to the story.

 

[jschreier]

To elaborate on the idea that the problems in games journalism are most certainly not exclusive to games journalism: http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=53A39C1C-B91C-11E2-9153-002128040CF6

 

[Mully]

Yeah painting the sentiment that Games Journalism is the only form of journalism that has had difficulty with providing an accurate but not too intrusive profile on a person or group is silly. It's a part of every other form.

 

[Orca]

I am not arguing that a writer should go tangential for the sake of going tangential. But I don't believe in omitting details just because they're not strictly relevant to a story, either. If I am profiling a significant figure or trying to paint a vivid picture or describing an interesting character, and if someone's race or religion or sexuality helps enhance that description, then I'm not sure why I wouldn't want to write (tactfully) about it.

This is all usually irrelevant in hard news reporting, of course - an article about, say, Ubisoft booting Patrice Desilets needs no details about anyone's race or religion - but I think stringent rules like that do more harm than good, if a writer lets them control his/her work. If I am writing a profile about some great game designer and I keep thinking things like "okay, can't mention that he's black... can't mention that he's gay... not relevant to the story..." then the profile might not turn out as great as it would if I felt free to paint the entire picture of this person.

You should probably reread what you quoted. In a profile of a person, their race/religion could easily play a relevant role in the story and should be included. It wouldn't be relevant to bring up Gabe Newell's religious beliefs in an article about his take on Windows 8.

It also wouldn't really be relevant to bring up someone being black or gay for no reason other than to bring up that they're black or gay. If it's not essential to the story, then it's filler and doesn't belong.

 

[CTLance]

Yeah painting the sentiment that Games Journalism is the only form of journalism that has had difficulty with providing an accurate but not too intrusive profile on a person or group is silly. It's a part of every other form.

This way of thinking really offends me. Sorry for going off on a tangent and blowing up on you, but it's really really really bothering me.

"Everybody else is doing it too!" means jack all, it's a spineless way of reasoning and a ridiculously flimsy argument.

If our politicians start having dissidents jailed and shot because "some random dictator in some banana republic does it too" they will be dealt with, and for good reason.

You don't get to give me a wedgie and take my lunch money just because "thousands of bullies do it too".

It just doesn't work that way.

If Kotaku does shitty journalism and gets called out for it they do not get to hide behind the abysmal state of journalism elsewhere. The rest of the press could be baby-eating necrophiliacs and it wouldn't change a single thing about the issue at hand.

Not that I really get all this hubbub, but jeez.

OK, sorry again for the outburst, back to our scheduled programming.


Man, so, that Justin Schreier guy, right? I swear.

---EDIT---