"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Reyturner]

I propose June be IdleWriMo.

[natellite]

As long as July can be IdlePitchMo. I don't have a problem writing, I just have no idea how the freelance infrastructure works and I don't know how to find out, haha.

[Apple Cider]

I'm sure a few of us can talk about pitching! 

[Ninety-Three]

The US Supreme Court just overturned the conviction of a man who made death threats to his ex-wife on Facebook. Some of these graphic threats:

There’s one way to love you, but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.

“If I only knew then what I know now, I would have smothered your ass with a pillow. Dumped your body in the back seat. Dropped you off in Toad Creek and made it look like a rape and murder.”

Is [the protective order] thick enough to stop a bullet?

 

The court ruled that the standard of "A reasonable person would interpret it as a threat" is not sufficient to convict someone, and that one must prove something about the threatener's intent (ruling here, they're distressingly vague about what exactly must be proven). The man's defense was that the threats were self-written rap lyrics.

 

Given that the above threats apparently don't constitute clear intent, the ruling seems to err far enough on the side of "You can't prove what someone's thinking" that anyone could easily make legal death threats.

 

I'm not sure I have any comments beyond the obvious "this sucks and is garbage", but that seems to be a bit of a recurring theme when it comes to Ethics in Games Journalism. Hopefully this is one of those rulings that fades away quietly, I can only imagine the amount of bile the internet would spew if they heard the headline "Death threats legalized".

 

Edit: Clarified some stuff.

[JonCole]

Popehat put out a pretty good explainer on this topic. That's all I have to add at the moment!

[natellite]

I'm sure a few of us can talk about pitching! 

 

I might start a "let's talk about freelancing" thread, if people want to talk about it. I know I do!!!

[Problem Machine]

It sounds like the situation with the Elonis case is neither as clear cut or as gross as it sounds. Most crucially, he hasn't been deemed innocent, they just need to try him under the new standards they've set, as confusing as they may be.

http://studentactivism.net/2015/06/01/why-todays-elonis-decision-is-a-victory-in-the-fight-against-online-harassment/

[Vainamoinen]

Two week old reflection on The Witcher 3 criticism, one in which A. Chmielarz gets utterly owned (and then he wrote a response, missing the point once more).

 

http://www.girlsongames.ca/2015/05/18/opinion-why-polygons-arthur-gies-the-witcher-3-review-is-not-toxic-to-the-industry-but-crucial/

 

I do hope that journalists gain more skill in writing about these issues. In general however, I see the critics of the critics mainly arguing that "they're doing it wrong" without explaining an alternative approach. Which leads to the old impression that the whole idea of putting video game narratives in a societal, real life context is frowned upon by gamergate. The same old "there's no problem, so no one needs to write about it" idea.

[Deadpan]

I'm definitely happy to share whatever limited expertise I got on pitching and depending on what folk are planning to write about I can even point you to a few places.

 

And then five years from now somebody discovers this thread and gets very upset about our collusion.

[Problem Machine]

Even before pitching, I have a hard time just feeling like my writing is something that a publication would be interested in. I mostly have been trying to write presuming an audience of game designers, and though I often end up writing stuff that isn't really design focused and also there's a lot of overlap of interest between game design and game criticism, I have no idea where the sorts of things I write might become the sorts of things people would be willing to pay for writing of. So far, it's mostly been just a way to keep my mind sharp and maybe build a bit of a name for myself.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Whenever I have attempted writing stuff about my experiences playing games I always have a big problem not feeling like I'm writing trite garbage. I don't think the experiences I have are trite in themselves but I have trouble actually verbalising them in a way that reads to me like it's both genuine and interesting.

 

Last year I spent a good half an hour trying to write a first line of a Desert Golf post before abandoning it because all of my instincts were dead ends.

[Apple Cider]

Well before you get to pitching level, I do strongly suggest regularly updating something. Not only does it serve as a resume for when you DO pitch (trust me, they are more likely to pick people with a cadre of work up online already as samples) but it also gets you into a groove as to developing your voice and strengthening your skill.  You don't run a 5k without jogging every day, you know?

[Salacious Snake]

I thought about writing about games for the first time in a long time today, and I got a twisting, barfy feeling in my gut. I was doing it professionally (in the form of very traditional reviews and articles of the "why does this style of coverage even still exist?" variety,) and then gamergate started, and I dropped it completely. My last article was in August 2014.

 

It was just weird to realize that it's now been almost a year, and it's still viscerally off-putting to me.

[Deadpan]

If it helps, even after three years of doing this and breaking in far enough to get paid on occasion, I still struggle with intros. They're the worst! And so is every other part of a text if you end up getting stuck on it.

 

Also, you could try finding a place that's less daunting to pitch to than the totes profesh sites you're maybe a little in awe of and that'll give you a bit of coaching, feedback and a vague schedule to keep to (sometimes knowing that something is not just for you can be enough to get you to sit down and finish it, in my experience). Definitely be very cautious in who you allow to have your writing because there's lots of places that will gladly abuse you and tell you you should be thankful for the experience. I recommend never writing for places where somebody up top makes money but you don't.

[Twig]

I don't even wanna get paid to write. I just wanna write for myself. BUT! I'm lazyyyyyyyy and lack motivationnnnnnnnnn.

[twmac]

We are always looking for writers on Arcadian Rhythms - a lot of us have slowed down recently (Shaun is writing more frequently for Rock Paper Shotgun and I have just stopped writing as frequently because my laptop blew up).

 

So if you want to pitch something to us, we are definitely not professional but we can definitely provide feedback - not paid though.

[James]

Has no-one commented on this amazing job description from the Sarkeesian Effect trailer?

 

 

It might as well say "Game Developer/Has Internet".

[Gormongous]

It might as well say "Game Developer/Has Internet".

 

It's also been pointed out that he's actually been banned from editing Wikipedia, so it should really be "Game Developer/Ex-Wikipedia Editor," just like they call Jack Thompson "Ex-Lawyer" or whatever.

[jennegatron]

The only Wikipedia edit I've ever done is to the Cap'n Crunch page. At the bottom there was a bit about this woman who sued over thinking that crunch berries were real fruit. In that section they referred her as a "serial litigant" and every place it said "serial" I replaced it with "cereal" and I think that may have been my crowning humor achievement?

[Cleinhun]

You should be proud of that.

[Salacious Snake]

Yeah, that's a good one!

[jennegatron]

Yeah, that's a good one!

 

You should be proud of that.

 

Thank you both, I'll be by shortly to pick up my humor Nobel Prize.

[Professor Video Games]

I just spent the last few minutes looking through the history of the Cap'n Crunch wiki page and all the reversions due to vandalism. Favorite so far is

'''Cap'n Crunch''' is a type A personality and is hard to work with. He has a lot of stuff on his plate but he needs to relax.

[Vainamoinen]

It's also been pointed out that he's actually been banned from editing Wikipedia, so it should really be "Game Developer/Ex-Wikipedia Editor," just like they call Jack Thompson "Ex-Lawyer" or whatever.

 

Also correct: "Ex-video game journalist". But deys no likey da video game journalists.

 

Also, this:

http://realgamernewz.com/46187/why-i-quit-gamergate-by-alexander-hinkley

 

Should be an interesting part of the show. Not sure his "boo-hoo, I wasn't hired because that website hired female gamergate celebrities instead" whinery is cutting it under the scrutinizing eyes of woman worshipper Jordan Owen.

[jennegatron]

Sorry everyone interested in GG, ethics & journalism, this is now the Cap'n Crunch thread, where we exclusively talk about Horatio Magellan & his never ending quest to find a way to relax.