Jump to content
JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

Recommended Posts

It seems that somewhere in between forgetting about my membership to this forum for a while and writing on the subject again, I've fallen back into the habit of arguing with gaters again. While I swat at my own head with a rolled up newspaper going "Bad! Bad!", allow me to point out that somewhere in the process I created this blog for answering anonymous questions about ethics in games journalism. I understand that most of you on here are probably not as head-scratchingly confused by these issues as these lost souls, but if you do have any questions loosely related to such matters, I would appreciate raising it to a higher level of discourse.

 

It would be nice to get back into talking about games writing on a level beyond "Why is feminism even allowed to exist?" for a change.

 

You are lovely people and this thread is good for my soul. Thank you, that is all.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

RogueStar, sour because of repeated suspension from twitter, vows to toggle his "shadow network," which I can only imagine is a euphemism for 'wanking'.

 

:tup:

 

Full stealth mode is wanking into a sock.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm starting to wonder if there's something in the human eye - like rods and cones - that controls whether or not people can see death threats directed at woman, and what we have in Gamergate is the consequence of modern science not being able currently to detect that element or its absence.

 

I'm thinking of it more like a secret government project to see how far an untenably self-contradictory position about social mores can be sustained. Start out with "death threats should be ignored" and end up with "saying women shouldn't receive death threats is sexist!"

 

Also:

 

I have little patience with anti-intellectual self-righteous delusional bullies that masquerade as crusaders for justice.

 

Pots and kettles, TB.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I like how every time he says something more and more of his outer shell evaporates to reveal the sexist squid monster beneath.

 

:tup:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The woman who initially complained about it on Twitter instantly received death threats.

 

Though, I think this is unrelated (if you're referring' to Gorm's post). TotalBiscuit once made a long post about how you shouldn't talk about death threats (referring at the time, I think, to Anita receiving death threats and cancelling a presentation at that one university). Gorm was expanding from there, perhaps somewhat facetiously!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, Denial's post seemed to be linking the tweets in that image to death threats, then Gorm seemed to be doing the same with the "death threats are sexist" reference.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Gamergate (based on the number of threads and comments in KiA) is kinda obsessed with the shirt thing. Which seems to dilute their message that they're really about ethics. Huh, imagine that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Pretty much! A female writer mentioned that space dude Matt Taylor's shirt - which had pictures of women in PVC sexy clothes printed on it - was maybe a poor choice for a public appearance, in terms of making science look welcoming for women. Cue the familiar deliberate misinterpretation and accusations of "neo-puritanism" - because "pictures of sexy women may not be appropriate in a workplace" is being taken to mean "sex is bad always"*. She got lots of death threats, predictably.

 

Ignoring those death threats in order to sneer at the idea of questioning Matt Taylor's sartorial judgment - for which he himself was rapidly and it seems sincerely contrite - seems to me sort of weird. But then I'm an adult human.

 

* Something that really stuck with me on this was Anita Sarkeesian's comment that angry dudes sent her hardcore porn because they thought that porn was a form of hate speech when addressed to feminists.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Gamergate (based on the number of threads and comments in KiA) is kinda obsessed with the shirt thing. Which seems to dilute their message that they're really about ethics. Huh, imagine that.

 

By far the hottest topic on KotakuInAction today, incomparably so, is this article about Matt Taylor's apology with a short, embedded video of him crying during its delivery. The thread title on the KotakuInAction subreddit?

 

SJWs bullied scientist Matt Taylor to tears. He apologized for "offending" people by his shirt. I am out of words.

 

Don't worry, though, the mods had the perspective to tag the link as "Kinda off topic."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

The edited comment on that is great:

 

edit: front page? wow. I guess nows the time to admit something- I honestly don't give a shit about this whole thing. this was blatant upvote whoring... sorry.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You can buy the shirt? I thought he had fallen asleep next to a van while it was being airbrushed or something.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I feel like the reason why this is even a big deal at all is because people still think that unknowingly sexist/having sexist tendencies = automatically a bad person. Then it's tied to the whole "the era of the nerd is waning, we must sharpen our swords" thing and it's turned feminists into bullies.

Edit: also there's image macros going around of Stephen Fry talking about offensiveness and wood engravings of 19th century men in top hats and monocles saying that if you express that you're offended by something, you're being unreasonable and can't control your emotions:

http://imgur.com/gallery/ox876

That stuff is mostly comedians and entertainers defending potentially offensive content but not necessarily potentially offensive messages, which is something that hasn't permeated mainstream reddit feminist bashing for much of the same reasons gamergate can claim that they're the victims of evil SJWs. Stuff like this always tends to originate on websites whose designs allow for this kind of catering to prejudices for the purpose of points and popularity.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So have they given up on the pretext of identity politics and hurt feelings then?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Preaching to the choir, but man it annoys me. It's shit I thought I left behind when I was a teenager in school.

 

I think the harshest, but most valuable lesson I've learned is not to take for granted that maturation comes with age.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.

×