Given that folks in this thread seem so understanding, I'm sure you'll forgive me for having not read through this whole thing. I mainly popped in to look at which terrible post I'd made was being paired up with my comment about us not posting about Robert Florence.
I see that choosing not to report this story now qualifies one as a non-journalism doing scumbag. That's a strange conclusion to leap to. The lovely thing about journalism is that there are new stories to report every day, and the got-the-pitchforks out mood here sure does make this a more interesting story. So, who knows. Maybe we'll do something on it. But last week? No, I didn't care that much. We talked about it, discussed doing a story. For now, we're not.
I did see someone mention that they thought that the continued suspicion that some gamers have of games media should clearly qualify this as something worthy of coverage, but that works both ways. On the one hand, sure, those suspicions are intensified now and that's interesting. But, on the other hand, this is more of the same. The sun coming up another day doesn't make for the world's most interesting story. (If you're wondering why we couldn't do just a short item on it and move on, since we'll do short items on, say, screenshots of some new game ,it's because the facts of this story are murky enough that it wouldn't work to just dash something off in 10 minutes.)
The theory that we're holding off on the story because we are compromised in some way is wrong. I'm not afraid of reporting or writing things that are uncomfortable. Anyone who follows the site I edit or my own work knows that. Kotaku, as part of Gawker Media, is well-insulated from being perpetually dependent on gaming ads, we're big enough that we can afford to piss publishers off (which we do regularly), and my team is paid well. We don't take travel; we dispose of or give away swag in ways that, ideally, don't turn the disposal of the swag into PR for the game the swag came with. We have a broad audience and we do our best to cater to a broad range of taste. Other than asking you to read Kotaku and maybe bother to remember articles that you actually like and respect, there's not much I can do to convince you that we're doing our jobs well. Nor can I convince those of you who see imperfections that we try to improve every day.
You can read what you want read, you can see what you want to see. Those who wish to pull out a list of stories on Kotaku that they don't like or think are not journalism and therefore aren't allowed to be posted on a news and opinion site can continue to do so.
Journalists should be watchdogs. It's always good to be having some watchdogs watching the watchdogs. Hopefully something good will come of this.