The Ombudsman Had Landed

Since I'm busy working on my next JS101 column tonight, I thought I'd crank out a quick post detailing what some of you thought about my first article about the whole Half-Life 2 debacle.



"Nice piece and a good idea, you should cover the gameing [sic] magazines as well, they could use a good dose of oversite on the PR vs. Journalism

issue."

-Trister Keane



Thanks Trister. I plan on covering the gaming magazines soon. As for the PR vs. journalism issue, see my latest article about the "innovative" new Mario game.



"perfect buddy, just awesome. I'm gonna go link to it right now:)"

-gabriel



Obviously I'm not above a little name dropping. This link subsequently shut down the Joystick101 servers for about a day, and led to most of the responses in this post.



"Dear sir,



In your article about how misinformation spreads through the misguided gaming news sites out there you mention that the PSBJ reporter writes for a local business publication and "(...) not a national video game web site." thereby, as far as I can tell, implying that some of the other sites you mention (GameSpot, GameSpyDaily, etc.) are national video game web sites. They may also be designed as such, but I believe that they are more than that - that they are actually international video game web sites. Sure, they mainly quote American release dates and seem to focus most on American titles, or at least titles released in America and/or Canada, but their readership is certainly international.



As I am sure you have understood by now, I have no education within journalism. I do not know what, by definition, makes a "local", "national", or "international" publication just that, but it seems to me that the readership is what matters.



As I'm sure you've also understood, my command of the English lanugage is less than perfect (being a life-long Norwegian citizen). Also, I have no

idea how to write an e-mail that is not a personal letter. Please excuse any glaring errors in form due to this."

-Terje S. Bø



I apologize, Terje. I indeed should have said international news sites. I will strive to be more correct in the future.



"Hi,



About your article and the pack journalism of news sites. I think you are trying to connect the sites to the wrong traditional standards that they should be held. News sites aren't the equivalent of a broadsheet newspaper which researches the news and strives to bring it's viewers the facts. They definitely have nothing to do with the once a week/month magazines where there is more than enough time to research all quotes. They are the tabloid press of the games industry, printing everything that is and isn't worthy of public consideration.



In the instant delivery system that is the internet you want to get any potential story first and bring it to your readers, even if it is nothing more than a rumour. Then you can research into it and get back to your readers about the issue (in the HL2 case within 8 hours) and give them the official word from the people who really do know.



In the UK this is how the tabloid papers often work and follow the leader reporting means most stories of interest are across all the papers before anyone has got any solid information. If one paper will print it and there are rumours floating around then everyone will. As you can retract anything in the next days paper it isn't that much of a problem. The same holds for online news sites. If you want to get just the truth then there are other sources that will only be researched material (like print enthusiast magazines) but the news sites are there to give you the heads up about anything that might be a news story in the next few days as well as reporting the actual news."

-Geoff "Shivoa" Birch

Freelance Journalist



Hey Geoff,



I think you're right that video game news sites are currently more comparable to tabloids, but there's no reason it has to be this way. Just because they have the ability to be up to the minute and post information without checking it doesn't mean they should do this. Posting the right story late is better than posting the wrong story early as far as I'm concern (even if you correct it later). Floating rumors around the broadsheets might be how it's done in the U.K., but here in the states we strive for a higher standard (Jayson Blair notwithstanding) =P.



"Before I journey forth into the land of standing ovations for your site, I have to give due mention of the gods that brought me to you; Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade. It's damn nice to see another site out there that hasn't fallen under the sway of corporate sponsored commercialism. A journalist with the balls and common courtesy to tell me when my leg is being pissed on instead of telling me it is raining. A new favorite has been born in my list. I can't wait to see what you go after next."

Jay-El



There's a land of standing ovations now? Uh, yeah, Penny Arcade is great. Whoo! Go PA! Uh, I hope you keep reading =)



"Kyle,



I wanted to let you know that your article is up at so many cut and paste websites that our server is too slammed to maintain it. This seems to be more traffic then the slashdot effect.



We hope to get a better server soon, but until then I think the story is going to make the site a bit sluggish/unresponsive.



Thanks for the traffic and the healthy dose of irony!"



Jon, Joystick101.org



Oh, the irony!



"Kyle,

I found your article by the way of Penny Arcade and I have to say it was an interesting read. But being a game "journalist" myself (I write for http://gamingtarget.com) I have to take issue with your problem with link and quote news. Many game sites are volunteer efforts, we do not have sources at the company or the time to treat our writing as a full time job. Link and quote is often the only way to get any news. You're right though that this does not excuse the corporate sites like GameSpot and IGN who do have the time, money, and contacts to get this right. But to label the whole industry as "sloppy, lazy, biased, and unethical" when the industry is often just college kids with a strong enough passion for games that they created a website to write about them is a little unfair.



But I did enjoy your column, I hope to see more, and I'm actually working my way through Masters of Doom myself. As I think every gamer is. And it might sound self serving, but in your call for story ideas I bet a look at some of the amateur websites that are run by college kids would be an interesting read."

John Scalzo, Gaming Target



Hey John, glad you liked the column. To clarify, I don't have a problem with all link-and-quote sites, just major sites with full-time employees and payrolls that are too lazy to do actual reporting. Obviously volunteer journalists who are full-time students or have other jobs (two categories I fall into) shouldn't be expected to spend the extra effort to get the story every time. But when I go to a site like IGN or GameSpot, I expect a little bit more for the money I'm paying for my premium membership.