Journalism is Dead

In 1919, Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz, an associate editor at The New Republic and later The New York Times, wrote an influential and scathing account of how cultural blinders had distorted The New York Times' coverage of the Russian Revolution. "In the large, the news about Russia is a case of seeing not what was, but what men wished to see".

It was an astute and accurate observation of how the press of the day had let personal bias and social preference shape the way the news was handled, resulting in incomplete, inaccurate and, more importantly, dishonest coverage of current affairs.

96 years later and a similar situation has arisen in which the popular media has adopted its own opinion and set about writing the reality it wishes to see rather than the reality that truly is. Over the past year a major talking point within our industry has been the Gamergate discussion, or as the media would have you believe, the den of misogynist white CIS men and a hate group against women/trans/gay/or any other group that resonates well as a headline hook. Those within the group deny these claims, of course, and insist that their main concern was that of ethical practices across social media and news outlets, resulting in part in many sites adopting a fairly comprehensive ethical policy.

The problem is, nobody is actually sticking to it, and here is why.

If you are going to blame an event, or anything else on a certain person or a certain group in a news article, the ethical approach would be to put all of your eggs in the same basket and present actual facts to illustrate how you came to such a conclusion. If your approach is to interview only the people that you know beforehand are going to play into your personal agenda then what you are doing is not journalism, it's propaganda.

I have, over the past year, seen hundreds of articles from major gaming sites and non-gaming sites alike post soundbites that fit well with the Gamergate story but show a seriously concerning trend for journalists to utterly fail at their task of accomplishing actual journalism.

And then when particular outlets have been backed into a corner over articles they have published which have turning out to be false, most will, rather than own up to their mistakes and attempt to amend the damage caused, instead double down and point the finger elsewhere.

As I am myself a woman in the games industry - one that has worked on a number of major blockbuster titles - I have been approached a number of times from news outlets such as the BBC and several US news stations requesting an interview, and each and every time this has happened I have been asked various questions about my experiences in the industry and "what I think about how Anita has been treated", and each and every time when I have made my opinions clear, the desire to interview me moves swiftly from wanting to nail down a specific day and time to conduct it to "thanks for your time, we'll be in touch", which is seemingly journalist lingo for "you don't have the right opinions we want to share, bye"...

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