Scott · @scotth266
25th Aug 2014 from TwitLonger
@JimSterling : My thoughts.
First off, props to you for mentioning the potential conflict of interest at the start of your message, because it demonstrates the sort of professional journalism attitude that has been sorely lacking in the industry.
That having been said, I think there's two general reasons why the Zoe Quinn thing caught fire:
1) A woman that had previously caught flak for "being a drama queen" about harassment did something embarrassing. This opened the floodgates for harassers and anti-SJW types to bitch about how women are ruining the world, as per usual.
2) One of the people she slept with had given her game positive press coverage on two sites shortly before they became involved - and his boss at Kotaku doesn't see this as a problem. In fact, a lot of games journalists attempt to act like nothing important is going on, and mass censorship of certain sites occurs.
Reason 1 is complete bullshit, and isn't worth talking about. Reason 2 on the other hand...
Let me put it this way. If the Gaming Public had one iota of trust in Gaming Journalism, this would still have been "A Really Big Thing." Yes, there's no evidence that sex was traded for favors. But the reason Grayson's involvement (which looks confirmed by Kotaku's response on the matter) is so important is that it's served as a focus for the storm that's been brewing for ages.
Sometimes that storm is focused on review scores, like the Gamespot Kane and Lynch fiasco. Other times it's about advertising, like the whole "Dorito Pope" thing. Once in a while, it's about how games journalists don't actively show spines when developers spew bullshit (see Yahtzee and Gabriel's latest Let's Drown Out video). And now it's about the personal relationships in the industry.
The storm's been hanging over our heads for ages: nobody trusts game journalists anymore.
The lack of professionalism, the clickbait articles, it's all added up over time. All it really needed was a lit match - and while this was a particularly ugly one - full of splinters and bent - it served its purpose. Then certain people did their damnedest to pour gasoline on the discussion by mass censoring as much discussion as possible about the topic under the guise of protecting the people involved from "witch hunts."
To a degree, I can understand. Doxxing IS a witch hunt of the highest order, as is some of the other stuff going on. However, there's legitimate discussion to be had on the journalistic ethics question. To the moderators of those sites, that didn't matter. It all had to go, and even the sites that have left the discussion up have done so with a degree of finger-wagging that suggests that there isn't anything to be worried about. For example, Greg Tito said this on The Escapist:
"How will arguing about this situation on this forum make the world a better place?"
While he was likely referring to the first reason this incident blew up, the second reason remains. And the more that sites try to pretend this isn't a serious concern, the more the public sees stuff like Stephen Totilo's half-assed "there's nothing to be worried about even though there's less than half a month's separation between giving positive press and the start of their relationship," the more outspoken people are going to get.
Thing is, I used to want to be a TV news journalist. I thought it would be fun to tell people the truth, and I took a high school course for it. But then I started noticing how national TV news operated (mainly the politics involved), and was disgusted by it.
Recently I'd been thinking about starting up a Youtube channel dedicated to games journalism (mostly reviewing, as it's my strong suit). But now I'm wondering if it's a giant waste of time - what's the point when credibility-killers like Nathan Grayson are allowed by their peers to skate by because the tangential issues (like the misogyny brigades) threaten to derail the conversation?
Let's put it this way Jim: when you do your video, I hope you don't only talk about the misogynistic reasons this blew up. God knows they're important (important enough for a whole episode of their own), but I hope instead that you focus on the journalistic ethics question, because there's a large number of people getting VERY angry about it - angry enough that they're not going to shut up even under the threat of being labeled as part of the misogyny brigade.
They're THAT mad, Jim.
And I'm mad too.