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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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I think there's a key word you're overlooking and there's a particular context that that section in the conflict section handles. Namely, they sometimes have opinion pieces written by people that don't work for Polygon but function as "contributors" rather than "staffers". These people may have a valid opinion on a topic but have some role in the space on which they're commenting. It doesn't happen often, but I've seen it before. I can look for examples on Polygon if you'd like, I just can't right now.

 

I also think that re: gifts, you're talking about an exception that would obviously require an interpretation of the rule. Sure, if a company showers 100 trinkets all valued $49 on some Polygon staffer, I'm sure they'd have to consult some senior management on how to handle such a situation. I pose again the question, though - if Activision pays for 10 lunches for you in a year, are you somehow then indebted to give them all of their games for that year good scores? I dunno, that seems like a massive stretch.

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Do they consider there to be a difference between a Polygon "staffer" and a Polygon "contributor?"

 

Based on the language of the ethics statement, they seem to define a staffer as a full time employee but a contributor as a part time or contract based worker who may or may not be paid.

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I think there's a key word you're overlooking and there's a particular context that that section in the conflict section handles. Namely, they sometimes have opinion pieces written by people that don't work for Polygon but function as "contributors" rather than "staffers". These people may have a valid opinion on a topic but have some role in the space on which they're commenting. It doesn't happen often, but I've seen it before. I can look for examples on Polygon if you'd like, I just can't right now.

 

I haven't been able to find any examples just by searching the site but then again I don't know what I'm looking for.  However, even if that is the case I still think the contradiction exists.  They are ostensibly not comfortable making money on a piece written by a staffer that has a conflict of interest because this represents an ethical breach, but they are fine making that same ad revenue if the piece is written by a contributor or temporary worker of some description with a clear conflict of interest.  Since they don't have any language in the statement regarding how ads are handled in this case, I'm assuming their advertisement policies are the same for contributors as staffers.

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I also think that re: gifts, you're talking about an exception that would obviously require an interpretation of the rule. Sure, if a company showers 100 trinkets all valued $49 on some Polygon staffer, I'm sure they'd have to consult some senior management on how to handle such a situation. I pose again the question, though - if Activision pays for 10 lunches for you in a year, are you somehow then indebted to give them all of their games for that year good scores? I dunno, that seems like a massive stretch.

 

I agree it isn't necessarily a binding agreement, but then again a bribe never is.  Isn't this the kind of thing an ethics statement should address?  If in your ethics statement you say you are willing to accept gifts of a certain value, shouldn't you be as clear as possible in what you mean by that?  There could easily be some language that says cumulative gifts of greater than 50$ will be given away on the site, donated to charity, etc.

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Is Kuchera the only games-journalist who supports a Patreon of a developer they wrote about? Seems kind of coincidental that Zoe Quinn is part of another games-journalism integrity discussion so soon after a campaign has tried to shame her out of notability. It's as if a mob is continuing to try and isolate her and destroy the reputation of anyone who enjoys her work publically.

 

No, there are others being discussed right now on the Interwebs, but the only one that seems to have actual evidence supporting a possible conflict that I've seen has been Kuchera, hence why I limited my discussion only to him.

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This seems legitimate for a reporter off in a third world country somewhere (the guardian, for example) who has no other option but to eat food provided to them, but it isn't like the reviewers are being sent to places like that, and bringing or paying for your own lunch is not out of the question. 

 

Dude, Britain is really not that bad.

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Slightly random thought, but... I just paid for Robert Yang's new game on itch.io, even though I didn't have to. Does that make me more corrupt (because I have given the creator money, rather than having to part with the money in exchange for the game) or less corrupt (I have paid for the game, rather than getting it for free)? Is it only acceptable ethically to pay the minimum market price? How about collector's editions? I'd be very suspicious of e.g a games journalist getting a high-value collector's edition as a review copy, but if someone buys a collector's edition and reviews it, they have paid more than they need to have. Does that make a difference?

 

I don't believe there is any issue with contributing to Patreon, buying special editions, paying a higher value when you have the option, or other such things as long as notable external factors which may affect the writer's disposition towards their subject in ways that would not be obvious unless disclosed are noted.

 

For instance, if a writer was discussing his own wife without disclosing the fact, it would not be ethical because the reader has no way of knowing that the piece was written from the perspective of a husband about his wife rather than from the perspective of a stranger. The same holds true of an artist criticizing their own work, or an investor discussing the viability of company they have invested in, etc.

 

Nothing is objective, but it is important to know if there are relevant situations that may colour the attitude of a writer towards a particular subject. The objectionable part isn't that there is bias — that is a given — but that there is bias that we cannot reasonably account for.

 

In the case of Kuchera/Quinn, I think it's probably relevant to consider what "undisclosed" means. There's no attempt to conceal his donations to Patreon - it's a matter of public record. So, while it isn't being disclosed in the article, it's also not being concealed. It's in the public domain. Given that, I'd say it's probably oversight rather than malice that led to the failure to disclose on that article - or the donation falls beneath a set de minimis level. There's no attempt to conceal the donation more generally...

 

I'm sure it was an oversight, but to say that this information was disclosed simply because the records are available to the public is disingenuous at best. The actual text of the ethics policy explicitly states that conflicts will be noted on the writer's profile page, disclosed in context, or made explicit in the footnotes.

 

It's also unlikely that this information was not available to his editor, or his publisher. Not to suggest that people on the Internet can be a little solipsistic sometimes, but the fact that something was not disclosed to you does not mean it wasn't disclosed. I don't know if that was the case with Kuchera and Polygon, but I _very_ much doubt that Nathan Grayson's editor was not aware of his relationship. It wasn't disclosed to the readers, because journalists don't have an obligation to disclose details of their private lives if there is no conflict of interest, and Nathan Grayson recused himself from writing about Quinn after the relationship started.

 

Are you seriously trying to argue that information that is known strictly internally to an organization can be considered disclosed? Nathan Grayson's situation was that no conflict actually occurred because he recused himself of writing about Quinn, hence there was no reason to disclose any information whatsoever. If Nathan Grayson had written a piece on Quinn after they had been in a relationship, then it would be remiss not to disclose their previous relationship, but that's a hypothetical universe that does not exist. That is an entirely different situation than what we are discussing.

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They won't accept accommodation, but food and drink doesn't count.  

I don't think that accepting a sandwich, a bag of chips, and a drink is "dirty".

 

Just to point out, I know in the 80s/90s, professional sports teams laid out massive gourmet buffets for sports writers at games and events because most papers excluded food and drink in their ethics policies.  This would include lobster, prime rib, and really good booze (those examples come from a longtime sports writer I knew).  In the sports world, that changed after a couple of minor controversies and the rise of sports media empires that have challenged the traditional role of journalists.  I've now seen journalists complaining about the condition of the facilities they have at some stadiums.  The NFL cable channel, partial ownership or business partnerships for individual teams with cable channels, social media, university/college league ownership of cable channels and other examples show how the business of sports has attempted to divest itself of needing to rely on traditional sports journalists for coverage.  You can also look at the economic threat that's been leveraged against ESPN by the NFL to discourage ESPN from digging too deep on things like concussions.  Sports media now needs access more than sports business needs the exposure, and the result is less bribery through buffets and more strong arm tactics. 

 

I think the relationship between sports teams and the media has more in common with gaming journalism than just about any other part of the journalistic sphere and a lot can be learned from looking at what all has happened there. 

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No, there are others being discussed right now on the Interwebs, but the only one that seems to have actual evidence supporting a possible conflict that I've seen has been Kuchera, hence why I limited my discussion only to him.

Well here. Talk about this one instead so you won't be confused for intentionally contributing to the misogynist witch-hunt.

http://wip.warpdoor.com/tag/data-stains/

http://www.patreon.com/user?u=263521

To be clear, I have no problem with a developer contributing to a writer's Patreon. But for those of you who do, I'd prefer if you distance your discussion from a female developer who is intentionally being mobbed punitively.

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Edit: oops double-post. i'm just going to leave it here.

No, there are others being discussed right now on the Interwebs, but the only one that seems to have actual evidence supporting a possible conflict that I've seen has been Kuchera, hence why I limited my discussion only to him.

Well here. Talk about this one instead so you won't be confused for intentionally contributing to the misogynistic witch-hunt.

http://wip.warpdoor.com/tag/data-stains/

http://www.patreon.com/user?u=263521

To be clear, I have no problem with a developer contributing to a writer's Patreon. But for those of you who do, I'd prefer if you distance your discussion from a female developer who is intentionally being mobbed punitively.

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Food and drink is included in the gifts policy, so there'll be no prime rib, lobster, and single malt for any Polygon staff.

That was part of my problem with itsamoose's post, it was not representing their policy was written.

I do think that the strong-arm tactics are probably the best and most used weapon against game press, not bribery/free stuff. I can think of a lot of times that sites were banned by a certain publisher and all of their reviews were late because they had to buy the games at retail.

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Food and drink is included in the gifts policy, so there'll be no prime rib, lobster, and single malt for any Polygon staff.

That was part of my problem with itsamoose's post, it was not representing their policy was written.

I do think that the strong-arm tactics are probably the best and most used weapon against game press, not bribery/free stuff. I can think of a lot of times that sites were banned by a certain publisher and all of their reviews were late because they had to buy the games at retail.

 

I was just pointing out that using high end food and drink actually has been one way that companies have attempted to influence niche journalists in the past, and valuing food and drink can be difficult.  It can be doubly difficult if you're at a multi-hour event, and the only food present is gourmet quality. Ultimately I think its small potatoes (food pun!) in the larger ethical picture, but it is certainly something that has come up again and again. 

 

I personally think limiting access is one of the single biggest ways companies can influence outlets.  Simply denying an outlet interview opportunities can be crippling for some places if their competitors are getting all the best stories thanks to access. 

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Well here. Talk about this one instead so you won't be confused for intentionally contributing to the misogynist witch-hunt.

http://wip.warpdoor.com/tag/data-stains/

http://www.patreon.com/user?u=263521

To be clear, I have no problem with a developer contributing to a writer's Patreon. But for those of you who do, I'd prefer if you distance your discussion from a female developer who is intentionally being mobbed punitively.

 

That actually is not the same situation. We're talking about a journalist contributing to a developer they are writing about, the example you provided is a developer contributing to a journalist, which seems like a more clear cut issue.

 

I think the discussion is moving towards the more abstract anyways, so from a practical standpoint I don't think it really matters whether the specific example is changed or not.

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Oh yeah, I'm not trying to say that food/drink serves no role when it comes to publishers courting press. I just think that Polygon's ethical guidelines have both specific language and a general tone that suggests they're attempting not to be influenced by these factors. It's not uncommon to see small blogs staffed by people you can count on your hand say "Activision was kind enough to fly out out to see Advanced Warfare!" without even giving a disclaimer that they accepted that accommodation. Undoubtedly, if they accepted those plane tickets they probably didn't feel like they needed to pack a lunch either.

 

Even when it comes to free games, one of my favorite YouTube personalities Northernlion has openly spoken about how various indie devs just throw their games at him and he frequently turns them away because he just doesn't have the time and interest to cover them all. I have to imagine that people with less scruples are just taking every offered thing without really acknowledging it.

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It's not uncommon to see small blogs staffed by people you can count on your hand say "Activision was kind enough to fly out out to see Advanced Warfare!" without even giving a disclaimer that they accepted that accommodation. Undoubtedly, if they accepted those plane tickets they probably didn't feel like they needed to pack a lunch either.

 

Ew no, of course not. Nuclear grade Cheetos would never make it past airport security.

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Stephen Totilo at Kotaku has updated their policies, seemingly in response to community feedback, to bar employees from contributing to Patreon campaigns by any developers.

 

Seems like the choice was driven by practical necessity rather than having an ethical leaning one way or another:

 

"We've also agreed that funding any developers through services such as Patreon introduce needless potential conflicts of interest and are therefore nixing any such contributions by our writers. Some may disagree that Patreons are a conflict. That's a debate for journalism critics."

 

I wonder whether Polygon will discuss their stance on Patreon or not.

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Are you seriously trying to argue that information that is known strictly internally to an organization can be considered disclosed? Nathan Grayson's situation was that no conflict actually occurred because he recused himself of writing about Quinn, hence there was no reason to disclose any information whatsoever. If Nathan Grayson had written a piece on Quinn after they had been in a relationship, then it would be remiss not to disclose their previous relationship, but that's a hypothetical universe that does not exist. That is an entirely different situation than what we are discussing.

 

There's a short and a long answer to that. The short answer is "no". The long answer is "no, obviously not". I was saying that the Angry Internet's insistence that Grayson be fired was based a) on a misstated date provided in the middle of a Timecube-length ramble by a vengeful ex-boyfriend, which even he has now walked back and b ) on the apparent belief that he hadn't communicated the existence of a potential conflict of interest to his editor, or that he had and his editor had thrown back his cape, cackled dramatically and told him to go ahead. Neither is likely to be the case.

Angry Internet not really knowing how working in professional journalism functions is a problem here, as in many cases is Angry Internet not actually having a clear picture of how working works, since many have yet to enter the labor pool or are outside it, concentrating on building their YouTube channel.

In the Kuchera/Quinn case, it's possible that Kuchera didn't think to report it. It's also possible that Polygon has a de mininimis clause that means that a small donation, say, whether to an indie dev or a charity, is not considered a conflict of interest. Or that Ars had the same, and he didn't think of it when he moved. It's probably a good idea to have rules about this, and to enforce them, but Patreon is a tip jar; the average donation to Zoe Quinn's Patreon page is about $5. It would be a good thing to have a solid policy on, but it's not a lot to build a whole j'accuse on.

 

Speaking personally, the idea that the best place to focus attention in the search for ethical violations is the microfunding site entry of a female developer is kind of unfortunate but probably inevitable. As we saw the last time there was a big games journalism corruption story, when the focus on PepsiCo's influence over the programming of GTTV and the offering of a PlayStation3 at the VGAs to journalists in exchange for tweeting a hashtag about Defiance were both largely forgotten in the rush to scrutinize and threaten a woman who had been involved in neither situation, but who was foolish enough to tweet an opinion that disagreed with a columnist's.

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(To be exact, entering people who might be journalists into a raffle with a PS3 as the prize - it wasn't a straight console-for-hashtag exchange...)

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Alexander Sliwinski at Joystiq just posted a link to their ethics policy on Twitter, I found it fairly interesting to compare to Polygon's -

 

http://www.joystiq.com/ethics/

 

They are much more concise about how they manage review assets and promotional materials, which is nice. They haven't integrated a stance on Kickstarter/Patreon-type things, however.

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There's a short and a long answer to that. The short answer is "no". The long answer is "no, obviously not". I was saying that the Angry Internet's insistence that Grayson be fired was based a) on a misstated date provided in the middle of a Timecube-length ramble by a vengeful ex-boyfriend, which even he has now walked back and b ) on the apparent belief that he hadn't communicated the existence of a potential conflict of interest to his editor, or that he had and his editor had thrown back his cape, cackled dramatically and told him to go ahead. Neither is likely to be the case.

Angry Internet not really knowing how working in professional journalism functions is a problem here, as in many cases is Angry Internet not actually having a clear picture of how working works, since many have yet to enter the labor pool or are outside it, concentrating on building their YouTube channel.

 

This is neither here nor there: stop bring up Nathan Grayson and the Internet mob as though it has any bearing on the current discussion.

 

In the Kuchera/Quinn case, it's possible that Kuchera didn't think to report it. It's also possible that Polygon has a de mininimis clause that means that a small donation, say, whether to an indie dev or a charity, is not considered a conflict of interest. Or that Ars had the same, and he didn't think of it when he moved. It's probably a good idea to have rules about this, and to enforce them, but Patreon is a tip jar; the average donation to Zoe Quinn's Patreon page is about $5. It would be a good thing to have a solid policy on, but it's not a lot to build a whole j'accuse on.

 

There is no need for hypotheticals, the entire Polygon Ethics Statement is available on their site. There is no insignificant clause applicable to Patreon. In fact, as anthonyRichard pointed out, there is no clause applicable to Patreon at all.

 

Speaking personally, the idea that the best place to focus attention in the search for ethical violations is the microfunding site entry of a female developer is kind of unfortunate but probably inevitable. As we saw the last time there was a big games journalism corruption story, when the focus on PepsiCo's influence over the programming of GTTV and the offering of a PlayStation3 at the VGAs to journalists in exchange for tweeting a hashtag about Defiance were both largely forgotten in the rush to scrutinize and threaten a woman who had been involved in neither situation, but who was foolish enough to tweet an opinion that disagreed with a columnist's.

 

You seem pretty bent on making this out to be some kind of witch hunt or anti-feminist discussion: it's just a discussion of specific somewhat ill defined aspects of journalistic ethics. No one here is calling for anyone's head. No one here is saying Kuchera's Patreon donations are some heinous crime or an example of corruption. Most people here, myself included, don't even think that Kuchera donating to a developer he writes about is inherent unethical. My own stance is such things need to be disclosed, but the specific act of materially contributing to someone you're writing about isn't necessarily unethical.

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I haven't been reading this thread, but I would like to mention a thing. Back when Microsoft unveiled the first redesign of the Xbox 360, the audience (which was mostly press people) received free 360s to take home. Jeremy Parish happened to receive one, and immediately gave it away because he wasn't comfortable with the idea of being given a gift by a console manufacturer. That's probably the exact moment where my respect and trust of that guy completely solidified.

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I haven't been reading this thread, but I would like to mention a thing. Back when Microsoft unveiled the first redesign of the Xbox 360, the audience (which was mostly press people) received free 360s to take home. Jeremy Parish happened to receive one, and immediately gave it away because he wasn't comfortable with the idea of being given a gift by a console manufacturer. That's probably the exact moment where my respect and trust of that guy completely solidified.

 

That's pretty awesome. Jeremy Parish was brought up earlier in the thread and his more personal discussion of ethics is nice. I feel like most discussions of this nature are more practical, or more academic, but few just layout ethics as part of their own experiences like Parish did.

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Allow me to apologize in advance if this post offends anyone.  I have Asperger's disease (aka high-functioning autism) so I tend to come off combative when that isn't my intention, which is only exacerbated by text-only communication.  That being said, here is my problem with ethics as we understand it in journalism.

 

Most of the posts in this thread have been people discussing whether or not a particular action is an ethics violation or not, which is entirely the fault of the ethics policy of the sites as they are written.  They describe particular actions in some cases, but often provide no definition of terms or clear definitions of the actions they do describe.  If the sites in question had such ethics statements, whether or not some action constituted an ethics violation would be known by simply reading the statement of ethics.  Joystiq's ethics policy (credit to JonCole for the link) is an example of a well written and concise policy that covers, for example, the ownership of stock in a publicly traded video game company.  There is still room for improvement but It provides a clear practice of determining whether or not some undefined action would be considered a violation of that policy, as well as what will happen in the event that policy is violated.  Polygon's statement on the other hand reads like cliff notes and is worded in such a way that an equally valid argument can be made in either direction as to whether edge-case actions (such as cumulative value gifts) are considered ethics violations.  In other words, it is a license to determine ethics violations on a whim and provides no guarantee that this policy will be applied consistently over time.  Now it is entirely possible that Polygon has a more comprehensive ethics policy which only their staff is privy to, but if that was the case why not publish it?  Some of the arguments seem to be that because this kind of thing has happened in the past or is common, it is acceptable or somehow a necessary evil.  Due to the loose wording of many ethics policies this is a perfectly valid argument, as is the opposing viewpoint.  After looking around at many sites' policies (not just in games journalism) it seems as though we have the appearance of ethical guidelines, but little more.  Ultimately I don't care what a particular site's ethics policy is, it is just something to be taken into consideration when reading their material, I just want them to be consistent and comprehensive.  I'm not saying these policies have to be legally binding, just clear enough as to be understood without inference.

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