Chloi R!!! · @_chloi
10th Sep 2014 from TwitLonger
Found me through the interview with TFYC? Please read. Thank you!
Hi everyone.
If you’ve found my Twitter through that APGNation interview with The Fine Young Capitalists, chances are you’re pretty angry with me. I know that for many, GamerGate is about honest journalism and calling out breaches of ethics when you see them. In regards to that, I’d like to clarify a few things before you decide to make an accusation against me. Please hear me out.
First, let me clarify that while I would’ve preferred if APGNation reached out to me for my side of the story before running the interview, I have nothing against them for conducting it in the first place. It’s important to examine all angles of a story before taking a side (if you even choose to take a side). That’s what I wanted to do with TFYC when they reached out to me back in March.
I will not publish the emails that I exchanged with TFYC, because I feel like that’s a breach of privacy and trust. What they said to me in those emails will remain contained in those emails. Please respect that.
What I will say is that my reason for not publishing any kind of article about TFYC back in March was not due to some conspiratorial cover-up or “corruption” on my part. I spoke with TFYC over the course of several days about what they stood for, how they wanted to achieve that, and what sorts of issues certain members of the games community had with them. I wanted, sincerely, to understand.
At GDC, I reached out to those who had publicly taken issue with TFYC because I like to get my information straight from the source when possible. I don’t like to base articles off of tweets and rumors.
The information I received from both parties was inconsistent. It was a lot of “he said she said,” general miscommunication, and so on. I struggled to get things straight, and while I sympathized with certain things on BOTH sides, it became more and more clear to me that I was getting caught up in someone else’s drama, and I wanted out.
Yes, I should have reached out to TFYC right away and explicitly told them I wouldn’t be covering their initiative, and I’m sorry for that. It’s easy to get swamped with work when you’re a freelancer. To TFYC, I am sorry, again.
There is nothing corrupt, though, about a journalist choosing not to give something coverage. We juggle a lot of stories at once, and some take priority over others. I, myself, would prefer not to write about something that I’m not 100% clear on, and when it came to TFYC, there was a lot of confusion, miscommunication, and disagreement on all sides. I never had any hard feelings towards them or their representatives while I was corresponding with them back in March, it was just a matter of me not wanting to publish something that I didn’t feel was fair or honest – to me, to them, to their detractors.
I got into this line of work because I wanted to write about video games, not give credence to drama-based speculation. My goal has always been to promote lesser known game developers and other positive goings-on in what many of us call the “indie games” community. I don’t publish drama.
I have never published any official word about my stance on TFYC. I have never written, on Indie Statik, or any other website that I’ve freelanced for, whether I think they’re a positive force in games or a negative one. I have never called them transphobic, as they claim in that interview – I have only attempted to clarify to them how others may have come to that conclusion. I haven’t published anything about their role in GamerGate (positive or negative), and I haven’t discouraged people from donating to their IndieGoGo.
It’s true I asked them to remove a drawing of me from Reddit a while ago, and I also asked them to remove any mention of me from their r/TumblrInAction post about Zoe recently. I don’t want to be associated, positively or negatively, with this conflict, as a person or as a journalist, just because I chose not to give coverage to something that many would have deemed as “clickbait” anyway. I don’t think that is too much to ask. You, as people who claim to care about honest, quality journalism, should understand that.
I didn’t asked to be dragged into this. I am just a lone freelance writer trying to give cool games positive press. I don’t want to get caught up in this. Please respect that.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me (nicely) on Twitter, but know that I will not be saying anything more about TFYC that I haven't already stated here. I try to maintain a level of trust between the people I correspond with as press, and using my journalistic outlets as platforms to write libelous or mean things about those people is not in my nature. So don’t ask me to.
Thanks for your time, everyone.